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I 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF 
ANDREW HASWELL GREEN r 




ANDREW IIASWELL GREEN, 1903 



THE LIFE 
AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

OF 

ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



By 
JOHN FOORD 




ILLUSTRATED 



GAItDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
1913 






Copyright, 1913, 6y 

DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & COMPANY 

All rights reserved, including that oj 

translation into foreign languages, 

including the Scandinavian 



^/ 



\/r? 



(e)C!.A.S5 4 38 5 



PREFATORY NOTE 

THIS memoir has been compiled from the diaries, letters, 
and pubHc papers of its subject, supplemented by the copi- 
ous references to his public career contained in the news- 
paper press. The original material has been supplied by the execu- 
tors of Mr. Green's will, and the work has been done under their 
sanction and supervision, and in its completed form bears the stamp 
of their acceptance and approval. Special acknowledgment for 
well-digested summaries of Mr. Green's work in the creation 
of Central Park and its adjuncts, and his administration of the 
Comptroller's Office, is due to Mr. Henry Mann, and free use 
has been made of an appreciative monograph on Mr. Green's 
career prepared by Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall. With the 
events that belong to the most stirring period of Mr. Green's 
public life, the writer of this Memoir had intimate personal 
association, and he may claim to have a certain special fitness 
for dealing with the tangled history of affairs related to the rise 
and fall of the Tweed Ring. For the rest, he has been guided 
by the counsel of those more familiar than himself with the 
later activities herein recorded, and he ventures to express the 
hope that the narrative of a life so largely devoted to the service 
of the City of New York may not be found unworthy of its 
theme by those who knew and appreciated the exceptional work 
and the unique capacity for public usefulness of Andrew H. 
Green. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter I. ....... . 3 

Ancestry and Place of Birth — Home Surroundings and Influ- 
ence — Early Education and Habits of Study — Arrival in 
New York and Introduction to Business — Self-Analysis of 
His Diaries — Friendship with Samuel G. Arnold. 

Chapter II, . . . . . . . . 15 

Life in New York — A Sojourn at the Farm — Voyage to 
Barbadoes — Sunday School Work Among the Plantation 
Negroes — Return to New York and the Beginning of the 
Study of Law — Assumes the Responsibilities of Head of the 
Family — Admission to the Bar. 

Chapter III. . . . . . . . .29 

Professional Association with Mr. Tilden — Comments on Con- 
temporary Democracy — Appointment as School Commis- 
sioner — Service on the Board of Education — Criticism of 
the Apportionment of the Proceeds of the State Tax. 

Chapter IV. ........ 41 

The Evolution of the New York City Park System — Early 
Legislation for Central Park — The Political Peril in Its 
Relation to Park Construction — The State Commission 
Legislation of 1857 — The Park as a Problem in Landscape 
Gardening — Organization of the First Park Commission. 

Chapter V. ........ 53 

Park Construction and Uptown City Development — Early 
Troubles of the'Park Commission — Extension of the Powers of 
the Board — The Educational Features of the Park System. 

Chapter VI. ........ 65 

Park Construction in War-time — Enforcement of the Merit 
System and Exclusion of Political Influence — Mr. Green as 



viii CONTENTS 

Comptroller of the Park — A Comprehensive Scheme of City- 
Development — A Protest Against Private Appropriation of 
Public Thoroughfares. 

Chapter VII. ........ 77 

The Persistency of Misgovernment in New York — The New 
Organization and Distribution of Municipal Functions — The 
Formative Period of the Tweed Ring — The Tweed Charter 
of 1870. 

Chapter VIII ........ 90 

The Era of Plunder of Tweed and His Confederates — The 
Exposure of the Ring Frauds in 1871 — Mr. Green's Appoint- 
ment as Deputy Comptroller of the City of New York — 
Holding the Fort in the Finance Department. 

Chapter IX. ........ 102 

Supplying the Needs of a Bankrupt City Treasury — One Man 
Against a Legion of Adversaries — The Arduous Task of the 
Reformer — The Momentous City Election of 1871 — The 
Menace of Riot and Disorder. 

Chapter X. . . . . . . . .114 

Appointment as Comptroller of the City and County — The 
Analysis of Ring Speculations — Half-hearted Cooperation 
of the Legislature — The Work of Auditing Outstanding 
Claims Against the City — An Honest Effort to Combine 
Economy with Efficiency. 

Chapter XI. ........ 126 

The Animus of Newspaper Attacks — Shortcomings of the 
Legislature of 1872 — Emphatic Support from German- 
Americans — Election of Mayor Havemeyer — A Campaign 
of Newspaper Calumny — The Trials of an Honest Public 
Servant. 

Chapter XII • I39 

City Finances in the Panic Year — The Market Value of Char- 
acter and the Defence of the City's Credit — Resumption of 
the Demand for City and County Securities — A Dastardly 
Attempt at Assassination — The City Budget of 1874 and 
Its High Rate of Taxation — Litigation by Disappointed 
City Claimants. 



CONTENTS ix 

Chapter XIII. 150 

Disappointing Results of the Reform Movement — Disturbing 
Effects of Party Politics on the Municipal Election of 1874 — 
Efforts to Legislate the Comptroller Out of Office — A Com- 
prehensive Report to the Legislature of the Financial Condi- 
tion of the City — A Movement to Nominate Mr. Green as 
Mayor — End of His Term as Comptroller. 

Chapter XIV 162 

Review of Five Years of Arduous Public Service — Complicity 
of Representative Citizens in the City's Misgovernment — 
A Reform of Exorbitant Gas Bills — Systematic and Fraudu- 
lent Vacation of Assessments — The Fight Against the 
Lobbyists and Their Allies at Albany — A Luminous Presen- 
tation of the Municipal Needs of New York. 

Chapter XV 174 

The Wide Scope of Mr. Green's Policy of Public Improvement — 
Beginning of the Process of Municipal Consolidation — The 
Early Movement for a Greater New York — Mr. Green's 
Pioneer Work — The Commission of 1890 — Disarming the 
Opposition of Brooklyn. 

1 Chapter XVI 186 

The Consolidation Commission at Work — The Appeal to the 
Electors of the Proposed Greater City — Conditions of Con- 
solidation — The Struggle Against Adverse Influences in the 
Legislature — The Greater City Charter of 1897 — Presenta- 
tion of the Commemorative Medal. 

Chapter XVII. 203 

Foundation and Growth of the Zoological Society and the 
Museum of Natural History — Origin of the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art — Mr. Green as Executor of the Tilden 
Will — Zeal for the Preservation of Historic Monuments and 
Opposition to the Removal of the City Hall. 

Chapter XVIII 216 

Work in Connection with the Preservation of Niagara Falls — 
Creation of the Niagara Reservation and Foundation of the 
American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. 



X CONTENTS 

Chapter XIX 229 

Profound and Continuous Attachment to the Home of His 
Youth — An Early Trip of Mr. Green to Washington and 
Thence to the New West — Casual Revelations of the Devel- 
opment of Personal Character and Tastes — A Characteristic 
Oration at the Original Home of the Graens. 

Chapter XX 239 

Mr. Green's Character as Judged by His Contemporaries — 
The Testimony of Newspapers and of Public Men — The 
Familiar Fallacy of the Incidental Benefit of Ring Rule — 
What New York Owes to Mr. Green — The True Method of 
Uptown Improvement. 

Chapter XXI 251 

Permanent Influence of Mr. Green on City Administration — 
The Standards and Ideals of the Father of the Greater New 
York — His Unique Position in Relation to the Progress of 
the City — Closing Years and Tragic End. 

Appendix ......... 266 

Index .311 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF 
ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



CHAPTER I 

ANCESTRY AND PLACE OF BIRTH — HOME SURROUNDINGS AND 

INFLUENCE EARLY EDUCATION AND HABITS OF STUDY 

ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK AND INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS 

SELF-ANALYSIS OF HIS DIARIES FRIENDSHIP WITH 

SAMUEL G. ARNOLD 

THE Greens of Massachusetts are a numerous family, with 
several stems and many branches. The branch with which 
this memoir is immediately concerned begins with Thomas 
Green, who came from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony 
in 1636, being then about thirty years old. He brought with him a 
wife and five children, the eldest of them eight years old, and five 
other children were born of this union on his farm in the town of 
Maiden. The force of character which has been steadily charac- 
teristic of this branch of the Green family through all its history in 
the new world was a well marked attribute of Thomas Green. 
He was frequently summoned by his fellow-citizens to act as 
selectman of the town and grand juror for the county. The con- 
nections by marriage formed by the five sons and three of the 
five daughters of Thomas Green identified them with the best 
blood of the colony. Thomas, the eldest son, married the daugh- 
ter of Joseph Hills, one of the great lawyers of his time, who was 
distinguished as "a man active in bringing the laws of the coun- 
try into order," and whose wife, Rose Dunster, was the sister of 
Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard College. Five 
children were born to Thomas Green, the second, and Rebecca 
Hills, his wife, of whom the fifth, Samuel Green, was reckoned 
by his neighbors as a man of light and leading. He was called 
"Captain," and when the General Court granted the township 
of Leicester in February, 1713-14, he was appointed, with Colonel 
William Dudley of Roxbury and others, to settle it. He moved 
his family from Maiden about 1717, to the new town, in which 
he owned 180 acres, and in the direction of whose affairs he 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

exercised great influence. His wife was Elizabeth Upham, who 
bore him eight children, of whom only one, the fourth, was a 
son, who received the favorite family name of Thomas. 

This third Thomas Green was born in Maiden in 1699, ^^^ 
was eighteen years of age when his parents took him to the new 
town of Leicester. He acquired a knowledge of medicine from 
two English surgeons who had abandoned the positions they held 
on piratical craft on the Spanish Main in response to the offer of 
amnesty made to reformed pirates by the home government, 
and who had in some way drifted to the domestic shelter of the 
house of Captain Samuel Green. In addition to being a success- 
ful physician — a profession which has existed in the family for 
five generations — Thomas Green was the pastor of a Baptist 
Church which he founded in South Leicester. It was he who 
first acquired the large estate named Green Hill in the present 
city of Worcester, which remained in possession of the family for a 
century and a half. Dr. Thomas Green's wife was a daughter of 
Captain John Lynde, and seven children were born of their union. 
The fifth child, John Green, was born in Leicester in 1736, and 
lived most of his life in Worcester, where he died in 1799. He also 
was a medical practitioner, and one of his best remembered traits 
was the vigilance with which he personally watched his patients, 
like a nurse, by day and night, if the occasion demanded. During 
the Revolutionary War he was a member of the Committee of 
Safety and Correspondence, and he served as representative in the 
General Court in 1777, and selectman of the town in 1780. By 
his first wife Dr. John Green had three children, and by his 
second wife, Mary Ruggles, he had ten. The second Mrs. Green 
was the daughter of Gen. Timothy Ruggles, one of the bravest and 
ablest military leaders during the French and Indian War. She 
was a descendant of John Tilley, his daughter Elizabeth, and her 
husband John Howland, all passengers on the Mayflower in 
1620, the line of descent being from them through Hope Howland 
Chipman, Desire Chipman Bourne, and Bathsheba Bourne, who 
was the wife of Gen. Timothy Ruggles. 

The seventh child of John Green and Mary Ruggles was Wil- 
liam Elijah, who was born in 1777 and died in 1865, and was the 
father of the subject of this memoir. He was graduated from 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

Brown University in 1798; studied law with Judge Bangs of 
Worcester; began practice in Grafton; and later pursued his pro- 
fession in Worcester. He was married four times, and reared a 
family of eleven children, all of whom but one reached years of 
maturity. The mother of nine of these children was his third 
wife, Julia Plimpton, who was a daughter of Oliver Plimpton, a 
soldier of the Revolution, and of Lydia Fiske, who was a daughter 
of Daniel Fiske, member of the Massachusetts General Court 
during the Revolution. Her fifth child was Andrew Haswell 
Green, born at Green Hill on October 6, 1820. 

It will be perceived that in the direct male line Andrew H. 
Green came of vigorous Massachusetts stock, through which there 
ran a well marked vein of distinction. His female lineage reveals 
an ancestry equally honorable. He was eighth in descent from 
Thomas Ruggles, who came from Nasing, Essex, England, in 
1637; sixth from Martha Woodbridge, daughter of the Rev. John 
Woodbridge and niece of Benjamin Woodbridge, the first gradu- 
ate of Harvard College; eighth from Thomas Dudley, who came 
over in 1630 and was Governor of the colony of Massachusetts 
Bay; seventh from Joseph Dudley, President of the Council of 
Massachusetts Bay, Governor of the Province of New England, 
Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Chief Jus- 
tice of New York, Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Wight, and 
Member of Parliament; sixth from Paul Dudley, Chief Justice of 
Massachusetts and founder of the Dudleian Lectures at Harvard 
University; seventh from Thomas Nelson, who came to this 
country in 1638, and whose son Philip was the only graduate from 
Harvard College in 1654; and fifth from Shearjashub Bourne of 
Scituate, Mass., whose grand-daughter, Bathsheba, married 
Gen. Timothy Ruggles. 

The family circle at Green Hill must have been an unusually 
interesting one. The father was a man of fine personal presence, 
had a constitutional geniality of disposition and exercised a lib- 
eral hospitality. With his boys, he was a comrade and companion, 
a participant in their pleasures and a helper in their studies. His 
literary tastes were exceptionally comprehensive, and he had a 
breadth of culture not commonly found in a country lawyer of that 
time, even in Massachusetts. The Puritan ideals of faith and of 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

life seem to have sat somewhat loosely on William E. Green, 
and the mere joy of living possessed him in a way that would have 
brought him reproof from the spiritual fathers of the community 
in sterner times. Boys brought up under the influence of such a 
man were likely to have all the faculties of mind and body well 
developed, to detest falsehood and to scorn pretentious self- 
importance. Three girls of the family were Andrew's seniors by 
from four to ten years, and all three grew up with habits of 
studious application associated with a deep and fervent religious 
feeling. There was no lack of seriousness in the household at 
Green Hill, but there was also no lack of outlets for the healthy, 
spontaneous flow of animal spirits. There were no near neigh- 
bors, and after a winter storm the house was pretty thoroughly 
isolated from the outside world. The family was necessarily 
thrown a good deal on its own resources, and probably no family 
of individually stronger, but also individually diverse, character 
ever assembled around a New England hearth. One child, the 
first Lydia, died in infancy, and another, the second Lydia, 
died at the age of forty-five. All of them, men and women alike, 
stood for something out of the common in their respective walks 
of life and spheres of action. 

Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall, to whose short biography of 
Andrew H. Green I am indebted for most of the genealogical 
details which precede, makes this very just remark on the domestic 
circle at Green Hill: "Certain it is that the family was closely 
knit together. They were all of strong intellectuality, high- 
principled and courageous of convictions, and the exchange of 
views between them was frank and vigorous. This intellectual 
attrition was always wholesome in its effects, tempered as it was 
by the kindliness of sincere affection and by the deeply religious 
sentiment which pervaded the family life." To this may be 
added the testimony of Dr. Samuel Fiske Green, Andrew's 
younger brother: "The life of a family so remote from the vil- 
lage and from neighbors would seem to have been, inevitably, 
rather monotonous; but it was not without important compen- 
sations. The professional life of the head of each of its genera- 
tions attracted visitors of high cultivation, broad views, and 
instructive and stimulating conversation. There was always at 

6 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



the homestead a library, rather scant, it is true, of standard 
works, elevating, refining and well read. The necessity of relying 
so much upon themselves for social pleasure and culture may 
account in part for the remarkable development of their affection 
for one another." By common consent, the primacy of the new 
generation was early accorded to Andrew, and it seemed a per- 
fectly natural thing that he should, even before he reached man's 
estate, assume a large share of its responsibilities. 

In the formation of the tastes and character of Andrew H. 
Green the situation of Green Hill had a considerable share. It 
is one of remarkable beauty, and ninety years ago it must have 
had a setting of woods and fields which the growth of the city of 
Worcester gradually impaired. The highest point of the farm, 
some five or six hundred feet above the surrounding country, com- 
mands a superb view. In the outspread panorama may be seen 
the towns of Auburn, Leicester, Paxton, Holden, Rutland, Prince- 
ton, Harvard, Boylston, West Boylston, Shrewsbury, South 
Shrewsbury, and Grafton. In the near distance may be seen the 
rocky summit of Mount Wachusett, and far away Mount Monad- 
nock sentinels the horizon. It was a place around which the 
affections of a boy might readily grow, and Andrew Green loved 
his parent home and its surroundings with an affection only ex- 
celled by that which he felt for the members of his family. In 
youth and in manhood he knew of no pleasure so exquisite as a 
return to Green Hill, and the sentiment which he records in his 
diary at the age of eighteen was one that he carried with him all 
through life: "It is delightful once more to be at a place that I 
can call home; everything that I see reminds me of my child- 
hood which has passed away and taken with it many of the 
pleasures of life." To quote the words of Doctor Hall: "The 
first fifteen years of Mr. Green's life were spent on the old home- 
stead at Green Hill. He was familiar with every nook and cranny 
of the old estate, knew every tree by name, and loved every feat- 
ure of its varying landscape. In these large and picturesque 
acres, over which he roamed free and unrestrained as a boy, and 
in which, after he removed to New York, he found refuge yearly 
from the cares and confinement of the great city, we find the 
school in which was cultivated his love of nature and landscape 

7 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

art which flowered later in the beautiful Central Park of the 
metropolis." 

There is abundant evidence that it was to the influence of his 
home that Andrew H. Green owed his intense desire to improve his 
mind and enlarge the sphere of his knowledge. Such book educa- 
tion as he had at his start in life he received partly at the hands 
of his family, partly from the schools in Worcester, and partly 
under the tuition of Charles Thurber. In addition to the com- 
mon school branches, he studied grammar, mathematics, Latin 
and Greek, and apparently acquired some knowledge of German. 
When about thirteen, he spent a winter in Roxbury with Jacob 
Abbott, father of the Rev. Lyman Abbott. But it was also 
greatly to his advantage, not less in character than in physique, 
that as a boy he did his share of the work of the farm. How 
thoroughly he liked this work his later diaries fully attest. In his 
yearly visits to the farm, in youth and early manhood, he takes up 
the familiar work with evident zest; now building with his brother 
John a hencoop, "finished in superior style"; now taking his 
turn at the plough, cutting corn, mowing and raking hay, picking 
and storing apples, and preparing loads of farm produce for 
market. From his gunning, fishing, nut-gathering, with his 
brothers, to the serious work of the farm, Andrew Green bore from 
his earliest years the stamp of a country-bred boy. 

About his taste for reading there appears to have been room 
for some difference of opinion. His eldest sister, Lucy, who was 
the only child of the second Mrs. Green, Lucy Merriam of Graf- 
ton, and who became one of the best known educators of her 
time, did not find young Andrew coming up to her standard of 
literary culture. At the age of seventeen, he records in his diary 
having seen a letter written home by Lucy in which she says 
that "Andrew would never become an elegant man on account of 
his distaste for reading." The effect was characteristic. "I 
resolve," he adds, "to apply myself to it both night and day that 
I might not merit what she has said." By way of practical appli- 
cation of his resolution, on that loth of July, 1837, he procured 
Russell's " Modern History." But before this we find him read- 
ing the "Life of Frederick the Great," and later, after setting 
himself twenty-five pages of Russell for his daily reading, he 

8 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

records that he is preparing in his mind a definite course of study. 
Of his lighter reading, there are occasional hints, such as having 
finished Bulwer's "Rienzi" and having taken up a book on the 
"Life and Times of Rienzi." He apparently finishes the latter 
work, of which he conceived a poor opinion, in four days, and pro- 
ceeds to the reading of "The Last Days of Pompeii." He re- 
tains his taste for history, and plunges into the compendious work 
of Abbe Millott, meanwhile borrowing a copy of "Virgil," which, 
to the credit of his early tutors, he obviously reads with ease and 
appreciation. 

The influence of studies more recondite, which come as he 
grows into manhood, will be dealt with in its proper place. My 
purpose in tracing the course of his earlier reading is to throw 
some light on the development of the character of the boy who at 
the age of fifteen left home to earn his living in New York. The 
broad facts of the case are simple enough: Andrew H. Green 
made his first visit in New York in the company of his sister 
Lucy, by stage coach to Providence and thence by steamboat to 
the city, on April 30, 1835. His first employment was as an 
errand boy in the store of Hinsdale & Atkins, by whom he was 
paid ^50 a year and board. His next, which began on February 
24, 1836, was as a clerk in the employ of Lee, Savage & Co., 
wholesale cloth merchants and importers, whose store was at 
No. 77 William Street, corner of Liberty. Inheriting the sturdy 
frame and fine physical presence of his family, young Andrew 
had, nevertheless, intermittently bad health. He spent the 
Fourth of July, 1836, at Green Hill, but had a severe illness after 
his return, from which it took him two months to recover. His 
place was kept for him and he resumed work in October. He 
appears to have been accustomed to go to bed about ten o'clock, 
or earlier. He occasionally records his arrival at the store at 
six o'clock, and even when he takes breakfast before going he is 
never later at business than eight o'clock, a habit which was appar- 
ently not shared by the rest of the staff. The work, unless on 
the books and accounts, he always found interesting, and there 
are casual entries in his diary like the following of May i, 1837: 
"I found how to calculate duties on square yard goods, which I 
think Is quite an acquisition to my little stock of knowledge. 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Happy and contented, I retired to rest and thanked my Maker 
for my preservation." He has to keep track of the arrival and 
departure of the packet ships, and later is intrusted with the 
Custom House business. Altogether, his commercial training 
appears to have been thorough, and that he fully utilized his 
opportunities may be Inferred from Mr. Savage's statement to 
him of November 9, 1837, that he had attained a place in the 
counting-house, which not one in five thousand had an oppor- 
tunity of doing. 

Perhaps the most notable trait of character which appears in 
the brief self-revelations of his diaries is that of extreme con- 
scientiousness. The earliest of these records which has come 
into my possession begins with April, 1837, two years after his 
arrival in New York. But it may be fairly assumed that the 
lad of seventeen did not have a sense of duty materially different 
from the boy of fifteen. It might have been a trifle more austere, 
as where he was invited to play whist, but declined, thinking he 
was getting too fond of the game, though he candidly adds an- 
other reason, that there was a man in the party whose acquaintance 
he did not care to cultivate. A little later, he fears he is getting 
to be too much of a flirt, but being twitted by his landlady with 
excess of pride, he says: "She thinks I am very proud; I am, I 
admit, but not any more than I ought to be. If my pride shows 
itself in any manner disagreeable to any one, I must try to check 
it, but if my pride is to fear to do wrong (as I don't think it is in 
all cases), I may well be proud." The candor of his self-analysis 
is quite as naive as some of the comments he makes on the social 
conventions of his time. He is already in his eighteenth year 
when it oppresses him with sadness to think "that the moral and 
religious state of feeling had got to so low an ebb that two per- 
sons of different sexes cannot walk the street without exciting 
remark." Again, he is at Cousin Martha's, a boarding-school 
for young ladies, and finds her going to Niblo's with a party of her 
pupils, and he relates this experience: "She asked me if I would 
go 'with her.' That is, you are neither to look at, speak to, nor 
think of the ladies. Said I, 'No, I don't go.'" His habit of 
business exactness is well illustrated in an entry of July 10, 1838, 
in which he records the fact that after taking account of stock he 

10 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

corrected an error of ten cents made hy him in the cash of May 9th : 
"The first one I have ever made, and it shall be the last, if I can 
prevent it, although I have always been exceedingly careful." The 
same trait appears in his regret that he had sent his friend Samuel 
G. Arnold a letter without paying the postage, "which is vexa- 
tious, as it is a debt that can't be paid." His habitual abstinence 
finds evidence in his statement of December 29, 1838: "Drank 
a glass or two of wine — a thing so unusual with me that I deem 
it worthy of note here. I don't probably drink more than one or 
two a year." Some depreciatory comments on his manners come 
to his ears, and he philosophically remarks that when one's man- 
ners are disagreeable it is desirable to be informed of it, that the 
necessary correction may be applied. This, too, although he 
regards the reports as "palpably and clearly unjust." 

Underlying all this there is a very deep and sincere religious 
feeling. In matters of doctrine he has, at least, a liberal tolera- 
tion. At the age of seventeen he participates at his boarding- 
house in an argument on Unitarianism, and he advocates the 
cause of the Unitarians. But the fundamental principles of 
Evangelican Puritanism are strong in him — among them a 
scrupulous regard for the sanctity of Sunday. While he was 
diligently applying himself to the study of French, it was his 
habit to attend service at the French church by way of assisting 
him to acquire a familiarity with the spoken language. But, 
after due deliberation, he comes to the conclusion that "it is 
not exactly right to appropriate Sunday to my own purposes," 
and he goes to Mr. Mason's church instead. Shortly after this, 
in his nineteenth year, there ensues a brief but intense period of 
spiritual conflict. It begins by his Cousin Cornelia plainly ask- 
ing him, after they had attended prayer-meeting together, why 
he did not become a sincere Christian, and proposing to him to 
go to see Mr. Williams next Wednesday. The appeal evidently 
touched a sensitive chord, for, in the interval, he can think of 
nothing else, and in his diary next day he says: "My thoughts 
still are turned upward ... I will become a Christian. 
It is not an excitement that will easily die away, for I have long 
thought on this subject and am now resolved, through God's 
mercy, to attain that name 'Christian' in its fullest sense." But 

II 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

he feels that he must be born again, because without the second 
birth no man can see God, and he endures the anguish of the 
devout soul struggling under a sense of its own unworthiness. 
His spiritual adviser was the Rev. William R. Williams, pastor 
of the Amity Street Baptist Church, whose main counsel seems 
to have consisted in cautions against the possibility of mistaking 
a passing emotion for a genuine call to grace. After many visits 
to this sympathetic counselor, he finally reaches a restful con- 
clusion: "I intend, with God's grace, to go on with the work I 
have commenced, and may I be a true Christian; this is all I 
want, all I ask for." 

Any biographical record of the boyhood and youth of Andrew 
H. Green would be incomplete which failed to take account of 
the friendship which he formed very early with Samuel G. 
Arnold of Providence, the future Lieutenant-Governor, United 
States Senator, and historian of Rhode Island. The two fami- 
lies appear to have had many ties, and Arnold's sister was the 
wife of Timothy R. Green, one of Andrew's New York cousins. 
The love between these two was as that of David and Jonathan, 
and was never interrupted by either misunderstanding or estrange- 
ment. How lasting it was is amply attested by the message sent 
by Senator Arnold on his deathbed, on January 31, 1880: "Tell 
Andrew H. Green that I would like to have seen him once more 
on this earth, but that it will not be long, even measured by mortal 
years, before we shall renew in a better world a friendship that 
has been so lasting and so true in this." 

Samuel G. Arnold was the younger by one year, and while he 
is still at school at Flushing, his friend is already at work in New 
York. As he passes through college, the other is getting his 
training in commerce. When Samuel is traveling in Europe, 
Andrew is facing, with undaunted resolution, the problem of earn- 
ing a living. But in thought or sympathy they never drift 
apart. Their confidence in each other was absolute; their recip- 
rocal affection was of a kind that no one else shared. At the 
age of eighteen Andrew writes to Samuel: "I have no one except 
yourself in the world that I can call an intimate friend (except 
always my father, brothers, and sisters, but these are different 
entirely)." This was elicited by the following declaration in a 

12 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

letter from his friend, then a student at Brown: "I have very 
few here whom I call my friends — in all the students at this 
college there are but two or three with whom I am particularly 
intimate, and but one of those with whom I like to walk and talk, 
and even he has many others among the students with whom he is 
almost as intimate as he is with me. Among the city fellows, 
there is not more than one or two with whom I go much, and with 
them only when I feel like having a scrape or going on a bust, or 
such kind of things with which you do not sympathize. You, 
Andrew, are almost the only standby and effectual friend which 
I have, and our situations are not very dissimilar, for you know no 
one and go with no one in New York, and I, as you see above, 
have scarce any here whom I can call my friend." 

The letters which pass between them are the frank outpourings 
of two rather exceptional natures, with healthy tastes and kin- 
dred enthusiasms. Here and there one strikes a vein of youthful 
extravagance, as when Andrew writes on February 14, 1838: 
"With what inexpressible, unbounded, unheard of, inconceivable 
emotions of joy and delight did I receive your letter of February 
II. . . . This much for a commencement. I must now rest 
a while and cogitate and get my feelings a little subdued, which 
have been aroused to a very extensive degree by your beautiful, 
delightful, exquisite, intense, sublime, handsome, well-written, 
well-composed epistle." This badinage calling for explanation, 
he replies to his friend's responsive banter in a way that fairly 
indicates the feeling with which Andrew H. Green regarded 
Samuel G. Arnold: "I meant to say that your letters suited me 
exactly, and I want you to let him come out of you. You have 
enough of him in you. . . . By * him ' I mean the devil him- 
self. Do you understand.'' I am obliged to tell you in these 
words, though some word expressive of playfulness and vivacity, 
life, happiness, good sense, and everything that makes man happy 
might be better." In the following year, when Arnold, after 
nine months' travel in Europe, broke in on his friend at break- 
fast in his New York boarding-house, the latter commits to his 
diary the following characteristic piece of appreciation: "He 
looks very well, and is, as he was, as fine a fellow as ever walked." 

The gravity of demeanor which distinguished Andrew H. Green 

13 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

In youth, as it did in manhood, always had its sunny side, and the 
labor of his early life in New York was relieved by a fair share of 
simple pleasures. For one thing he was on visiting terms with a 
wide circle of relatives, and was very much at home in the house 
of his cousin Timothy R. Green. Neither his own religious 
training nor that of his Immediate connections appears to have In- 
terfered with an occasional visit to the theatre, Niblo's Garden 
for the most part, an occasional dancing party, or a casual game 
of cards. His attendance at church was rigidly regular, and he 
was a fairly constant attendant at the weekly prayer meetings. 
He made a brief trial of a Sunday class of rather unpromising 
urchins, held at Jefferson Market, but had to retire from the 
experiment discouraged. His intimate relation to the political 
activity of his time did not begin until he had reached man's 
estate, and, considering the robust quality of his Democracy In 
later life, it is curious to find him, as a youth, gleefully recording 
Whig victories at the polls. On the eve of the great Whig tri- 
umph of November 8, 1837, he writes: "It Is reported that there 
will be a great majority for the Whigs. I hope It may turn out 
so; the party in power at present are misguided, and have done a 
great deal of injury since they commenced." It is Interesting to 
compare this with the comment of the great New York Whig 
protagonist, Philip Hone: "The battle has been fought and won. 
The election closed this evening at sundown and the Whigs have 
succeeded in their whole ticket. New York has broken her 
chains and stands erect, regenerated. The moral and political 
effect of this victory will be prodigious. The eyes of the whole 
United States were turned to us. The measures of the adminis- 
tration stand condemned before the nation, and Mr. Van Buren 
must alter his course or sink to rise no more." Once again, 
a year later, but only once again, were these two in perfect ac- 
cord as to the results of a New York election. 



14 



CHAPTER II 

LIFE IN NEW YORK — A SOJOURN AT THE FARM — VOYAGE TO 

BARBADOES SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK AMONG THE PLANTATION 

NEGROES RETURN TO NEW YORK AND THE BEGINNING 

OF THE STUDY OF LAW ASSUMES THE RESPONSIBILI- 
TIES OF HEAD OF THE FAMILY ADMISSION 

TO THE BAR 

THE New York to which Andrew H. Green came in 1835 was 
a city of about 250,000 people. The business quarter was 
south of Fulton Street, and the most important commercial 
establishments were south of Wall. The fire of December 16, 1835, 
swept an area a quarter of a mile square, and destroyed property 
valued at ^15,000,000. Philip Hone, who did not then know much 
about Europe, puts on record his belief that "there is not, per- 
haps, in the world the same space of ground covered by so great 
an amount of real and personal property as the scene of this 
dreadful conflagration." Its limits were as follows: South side 
of Wall Street from William Street to East River; Exchange 
Street, both sides, from Broad Street, crossing William to Mer- 
chant Street; Merchant Street, both sides, from Wall Street to 
Hanover Square; Pearl Street, both sides, from Wall Street to 
Coenties Slip, with the whole sweep of Hanover Square, Stone 
Street, and Beaver Street, nearly to Broad Street; Water Street, 
Front Street, and South Street, with all the intersecting streets 
and lanes from Wall Street to Coenties Slip, including the south 
side of Coffee House Slip. 

The situation of the boarding-houses successively occupied by 
young Green sufficiently indicates the restricted area within 
which the life of the commercial metropolis of the country then 
moved: Franklin Street, John Street, Monroe Street, Frankfort 
Street, corner of Cliff, and finally No. 5 Amity Street, and 49 
Bond Street. Some of the old families still lived around Bowling 
Green, and on that part of Broadway which faced the City Hall 

15 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Park, as well as on the streets adjoining, was a cluster of fash- 
ionable houses. Broadway was the favorite promenade, and the 
most frequented part of it was still below Canal Street. On a 
pleasant Sunday in May, three weeks after his arrival, Andrew 
Green probably walked in the throng in which Philip Hone 
records, "the ladies' new French hats and the gentlemen's white 
pantaloons were exhibited with impunity from staining shower or 
biting blast, and the air was redolent of the tender grass and 
opening lilacs." 

But close as the New York of Mayor Lawrence was to these 
country odors, it lay closer yet to the sea, and in recreating the 
city of that era one becomes conscious of the dominance of the 
interests of the port and the pervasive smell of tar and salt water. 
The relative proportions of the shipping trade of Providence and 
that of New York come in for frequent notice in the letters that 
pass between Andrew H.Green and Samuel G. Arnold. "You 
know what a marine chap I am," writes Arnold on October 17, 
1836. "Well, yesterday some things happened to please me, 
viz., the arrival of the Swedish ship Albion, seventy days from 
Gottenburg, and four other foreign arrivals. The Swede reports 
two more ships loading for Providence. I've a wonder to tell: 
There is a very small schooner here, smaller than a sloop, which 
is to sail for the East Indies shortly. She is merely a fore-and- 
aft rigged vessel, no topsails. This is a bold thing, is it not? 
There are three East Indiamen now in port besides this schooner." 
Six weeks later there are these items to chronicle: "We have had 
some ships here since your last one from Gottenburg; an Amer- 
ican this time is the most important. One sailed a month ago 
for the Northwest coast — a three years' voyage. She was a 
beautiful ship and had fine accommodations for passengers in her 
roundhouse. She had three passengers aboard. A sloop of only 
twelve tons sailed from here the other day for Mobile. The 
owner gave the pilot who takes her out ^200 for the dangerous 
voyage. A ship is expected in here daily from Canton and 
Manila." In the summer of the following year the naval pride 
of Providence is seen to be visibly swelling, for Arnold recounts : 
"A large ship, the Brunswick, arrived from St. Helena. The 
ship Hanover is expected in a fortnight from Canton. Another 

16 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

from Liverpool will arrive to-night and another from Greenock 
soon, besides half a dozen from the West Indies and the prov- 
inces, and a ship from New Zealand some time in the course of 
next month. So, you see, we are in a pretty good way for foreign 
vessels this year, but the Southern trade hard times has greatly 
diminished." 

To the New Yorker the most remarkable thing about all this 
was that so many good ships should brave the perils of the 
approach to Providence Harbor and that so comparatively few 
should come to grief. Not to chill the enthusiasm of his well- 
beloved correspondent, but by way of showing that New York 
had become one of the really great ports of the world, Green 
encloses, in July, 1837, this very suggestive newspaper clipping 
which, on its own merits, seems worth reproduction: 

Foreign Shipping. — Yesterday our wharves presented quite a variety of 
foreign decoration. We counted the flags of sixteen different nations. This 
is rather an unusual number, caused in part doubtless by the immense impor- 
tations of foreign grain; yet we should be aware that our ships have a hard 
contest with those of some other Powers, navigated as the latter are, at so 
much less expense. 

Of two hundred and seventy odd vessels, there were about 90 ships, 32 
barques, 130 brigs, 11 galliots, 4 schooners (foreign), exclusive of schooners 
and sloops engaged in the coasting trade, too numerous to mention. 

Of the 270 above mentioned, 93 were foreign vessels, viz: 17 British, 15 
Dutch, 12 Prussian, 12 Swedish, 10 Danish, 8 Bremen, 4 French, 3 Spanish, 
3 Italian, 3 Austrian, and from Hanover, Russia, Hamburg, Belgium, Mechlen- 
bourg, (sic) Genoa, one each. The high rate of exchange compels those who 
have the impudence to think of paying their foreign debts, to ship anything 
which offers any inducement. The Liverpool packets are therefore partially 
loaded out, with the prospect of nothing home but passengers. The Havre 
packets must depend much upon the latter alone. 

The vistas of the continent behind them being still relatively 
short — the construction of the Erie Railroad had only begun, 
and the lines that were to form the New York Central system 
were still few and far between — the outlook of New Yorkers 
seems to have had a more spacious range seaward than land- 
ward. When the panic of 1837 cast a blight on young Green's 
commercial prospects, he had frequent consultations with his 
nautical friends about shipping as supercargo on a merchant ship. 
Finally, when the prospects of achieving a secure position in the 
mercantile life of New York were but little encouraging, he ac- 

17 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

cepted a proposition to go to Trinidad to assist in the management 
of a sugar plantation. 

He had, meanwhile, on the dissolution of the firm of Lee, 
Savage & Co., in August, 1839, terminated a connection which 
seems on the whole to have been a pleasant one on both sides. 
Mr. Savage hoped to resume business on his own account, and 
expressed a desire again to secure the services of a valued assist- 
ant. A very brief connection with the firm of Wood, Johnson 
& Burritt, linen importers in Exchange Place, was followed by a 
nearly continuous sojourn of a year at Green Hill. This began 
and ended with one of those visits to the Arnolds at Providence 
which were always among the brighest spots of this period of his 
career. Life at the farm was by no means monotonous, and the 
unremitting labor of the spring, summer and fall in the fields and 
garden certainly did not depress his spirits and probably strength- 
ened his constitution. In the comparative leisure of the winter 
months he makes frequent visits to the library of Antiquarian 
Hall in Worcester, and forms the acquaintance of Elihu Burritt, 
who became known throughout the English-speaking world as 
"The Learned Blacksmith." Burritt introduced him to Ice- 
landic, lent him a Hebrew Bible, grammar and dictionary, and 
evidently awakened his interest in linguistic and ethnological 
studies. But his mind keeps constantly running on making 
provision for the future, and, after much inward debate, he re- 
turns to New York on February 3, 1841. 

It was apparently during his last long stay at the farm that 
he made the draft of a very characteristic document intended to 
be his last will and testament. It begins as follows; 

"Knowing not how long my life may be spared, and having 
for some time thought that (as Doctor Washington of New York 
told me that I possibly might have an aneurism of the right artery 
though afterward on consultation with Doctor Stevens of New 
York said that there was nothing in it but a nervous disorder of 
the heart or that my glandular system was affected) I was not 
long to live here — God grant that it may be so long till my peace 
is made with Him through Jesus Christ — I have concluded here 
to give a statement of all my affairs and concerns that in the event 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



of my decease may be attended to particularly and scrupulously by 
whoever may find his name at the top of this page to whom this is 
addressed, there being no person specified at the present date." 

Then follows an enumeration of the sums which he owes and 
of those that are owing to him, whose exactness may be inferred 
from this little item : " I owe to my sisters Lucy M. Green and 
Mary R. Green borrowed money on October 7, 1839, $2.70; paid 
^1.16." After the statement of his finances occurs this touching 
filial tribute: "To my father, who has been to me a kind and 
indulgent parent, I would say all that one can say: I wish him 
joy in this life and in the life to come, most earnestly wishing him 
to seek for rest in Heaven through Jesus Christ. May God 
reward him for his goodness to me." 

The only steady employment which he found in New York in 
1 84 1 consisted of a few months of application to the somewhat 
exacting and highly varied duties of the auction rooms of Mr. 
Simeon Draper. His eyes, with which in his youth he had recur- 
rent trouble, proved unequal to the night work at Draper's, and 
an introduction to Mr. William Burnley, who was interested in a 
sugar plantation in Trinidad, finally led to his acceptance of an 
offer to act as assistant overseer and to his taking ship to 
Barbadoes on the third of November. 

On his twenty-first birthday, October 6, 1841, there occurs the 
following entry in his diary: "This morning at about half- 
past eight I was baptized by immersion, down at the Battery, by 
the Rev. Mr. Ogilby (Prof, at the Theological Seminary in Twenty- 
first Street). Mr. J. W. Mitchell, Rev. Mr. Clare and wife 
stood sponsors; Lucy, Julia, Clarence and some others present." 
The entry is accompanied by a fervent prayer that the solemn 
ordinance of which he had been that day the partaker might not 
make a light impression on him, but should ever stimulate him 
to earnest endeavors to advance the Kingdom of God. 

It is interesting to note that before going on board the brig 
Star, bound for Barbadoes, Andrew H. Green cast his first vote 
in company with John Bigelow. The entry in his diary reads: 
"Went the Democratic ticket. I swore Mr. Bigelow through 
and he me." The Whig enthusiasms of his youth had evidently 

19 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

evaporated, a result possibly due to his intercourse with Mr. 
Bigelow and Mr. Sickles, with both of whom he records frequent 
meetings. 

The voyage lasted twenty-one days, the first fourteen being 
stormy and at times tempestuous, the last seven having frequent 
calms and occasional squalls. It illustrates the wide diffusion 
of the ocean trade of that period of American history that his 
first letters home went by the Magnolia, bound for New Haven. 

At home, he had kept steadily aloof from the Abolitionist 
agitation, and from time to time had expressed some doubts 
in his diary about the wisdom of its methods. In his new home, 
on the plantation at Orange Grove, Tacariqua, he came face to 
face with the negro problem and thus records his first impres- 
sions of the race: 

"The negroes in this land and on this estate are a peculiar 
people. Once in a state of abject slavery, ruled and governed 
by their masters, they acquired a servile submission — now, 
freed by the efforts of the Anti-Slavery Society (to what degree 
beneficial, farther than exemption from cruelty, is a question) 
they have so great an idea of themselves that they carry their 
freedom of speech to the most vulgar and obscene impudence, 
and when desired to perform any particular labor, adhere to this 
course of impudence and obstinacy till they find one firm and 
decided with them, then perform the task with reluctance. The 
results of ignorance and want of ambition keep them always at 
the same depth below the level from which they can only be ele- 
vated by a long course of patient instruction in the necessary 
duties of the Christian life. Such a course it is my intention to 
commence with them on the next Sabbath. This should, I 
think, have been done some time since by the minister of the 
parish though it has been far from the case. I will make a trial 
and, with the blessing of God, hope to succeed." 

He accordingly opens a school in an unfinished house next 
Sunday, with six children and as many grown people. On the 
following Sunday an attendance of twenty-five grown persons 
and children is recorded. The Sunday after (Christmas) finds 

20 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

the attendance reduced to fifteen, and though on one subsequent 
Sunday the attendance reached twenty, it had dwindled by Feb- 
ruary 6th to nothing. He perseveres, however, but although 
cheered by a momentary revival of interest he is compelled to 
record when no pupils appeared on March 20th: "The people are 
in fact too indolent to learn, though every means be taken to 
interest and amuse them; they cannot attend steadily to instruc- 
tion." Still undismayed, he writes on March 27th : " My Sunday- 
school was not attended by any one, though I was there and am 
determined that it shall not be given up for lack of any exertion 
of mine." By April loth, he came to the conclusion that it is 
best to leave the grown people and undertake more with the 
children by interesting them in every manner possible. Accord- 
ingly, on the 17th, he says that he made every effort to assemble 
as many of the children as possible, to teach them the truths of 
the Bible, finding it useless to attempt to instruct the grown 
people other than orally. He succeeds in getting a class of about 
fifteen together and makes a beginning which he hopes will lead 
to favorable results. Though he meets with but little encour- 
agement from the local clergyman, or any of the resident plan- 
ters, he does not give up, and is gratified by evidences of interest 
in his pupils. In June he records increased interest and attend- 
ance, but by August the school had to be abandoned, as the 
house it occupied was turned over to some Spaniards, and by the 
first week of September, 1842, he had left Trinidad for good. 

At the very beginning of his stay on the plantation he ad- 
dressed himself with characteristic thoroughness to the study of 
soils and the processes of sugar making, and when the grinding 
season began in January, he was ready to take the management 
of everything connected with the boiling-house. A recent re- 
duction in wages from 5 bits (50 cents) per "task" to 3 bits (30 
cents) produced general discontent among the laborers, and the 
grinding season opened most inauspiciously. Very early in his 
experience Mr. Green makes this comment on the labor situation in 
Trinidad: 

"There must be much more advancement among this people 
in moral education and in general knowledge before a regular and 

21 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

industrious population can be established, and this will take much 
time. That the proprietors of estates unitedly have the labor- 
ers in their own hands at present is certain, but as the people 
advance, ambition will be excited; each man will strive for a 
competency in the way in which it can most easily be acquired, 
and this will give a population not immediately dependent on the 
planters, and regular and steady in their occupations. The 
policy of the planters is extremely short-sighted and selfish, but 
decidedly for their interest for a few years." 

Occasional entries in his diary like this, "at boiling-house from 
morning till about ten o'clock at night," indicate that he was 
overtasking a never very robust constitution. He comes out of 
the grinding season pretty well exhausted, and devotes himself 
with characteristic vigor to the work in the fields. Compelled 
to live in a little shed of a house about eight feet square, with no 
ceiling but the bare shingles overhead, the climate begins to tell 
on him, and by August he is driven to the conclusion that it is 
best to return home. He accordingly takes passage in a British 
ship. The Humming Bird, bound for Baltimore on September 9th 
and by the thirtieth of the month he is again in New York. 

Early in 1843 the idea of studying law took definite hold of his 
mind, and on February 24th he begins reading "Blackstone." 
On March 7th, he saw Mr. Hallett of the Superior Court about 
the requirements for entering the Bar, which he finds are very 
rigid in the State of New York. On April 13 th the following 
interesting entry occurs in his diary: "Got affidavits from Mr. 
Folsom as to my classical studies and got Mr. Bigelow to file 
them according to law in the office of the Clerk of the Supreme 
Court. The law in this State requires seven years' study to 
become an attorney, and these affidavits will take four years off 
my term of study. In commencing the study of law I have not 
yet entirely made up my mind to relinquish mercantile pursuits, 
but enter law while mercantile aff"airs look so dull, I hold it to 
be necessary for every man to be acquainted generally with the 
laws under which he lives, and it is indispensable to know on 
what principles they are founded and where they get their au- 
thority. These general principles, at any rate, will be highly 

22 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

useful to me should I not continue to practise. I may, on fur- 
ther consideration, conclude to relinquish other pursuits entirely. 
My aim, if I do pursue the law, should be to deal fairly and can- 
didly with all clients never urging them to maintain controversy 
for the sake of obtaining costs — and to make myself familiar 
with laws in their rise, advancement, influence, etc., taking an 
enlarged view of the workings of law in all ages of the world, and 
not confining myself to the mere pettifogging routine of court 
life." 

Meanwhile, in the midst of somewhat varied pursuits, he en- 
lists his friends in procuring for him a commissionership of 
deeds for various States. Mr. Arnold gets him Rhode Island; 
Mr. Tilden and others approach the Governor of New York on 
his behalf, and applications are also made for him in Vermont, 
New Hampshire, and Illinois. 

His friend Arnold's purchase of a country seat at Newport 
moves him to some philosophical reflections on the curious con- 
trast between the worldly lot of two men bound by intimate 
friendship. He adds : " I do not deem it possible to have the 
free use of intellectual power unless one has a certainty of re- 
spectable provision for his daily wants. But we are so consti- 
tuted that things real, things material, earthly, chain us down, 
and repress mental aspirations. When we would soar away, we 
find that the mud and dirt of this lower world soon weights us 
down again to tread the same beaten road that millions of the 
same insignificant animals have done before us." On his twenty- 
third birthday he strikes a somewhat similar note, as follows: 
"It is well to keep the curtain drawn before the future. If we 
poor, weak mortals only thought what might be in store for us, 
'twould only serve to embitter and poison the little pleasure that 
we can snatch as the hours pass away." 

He is acutely conscious of his own limitations and commits 
this judgment of himself to his diary on July 14th: "There is a 
great want of arrangement in my Intellectual depository — a want 
of memory, or something or another there which is not right. I 
love to unravel some metaphysical question and settle it conclu- 
sively to myself, but when I want to use my train of argument on 
another occasion, though I find the conclusion, the intermediate 

23 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

steps do not readily present themselves, and this troubles me. I 
feel a great desire to be a good writer, but do not deem myself at 
all competent to write even a decent paragraph. I want facts, I 
want a great deal of reading, a deal of knowledge of history, a 
knowledge of arts and sciences — all these I want and must 
have. And more than all I want a good system to proceed upon 
for reading and thinking. What a task before me! I shall 
want strength, energy, and perseverance, and, what is more, I 
don't believe I have sufficient to do what I wish to do. But if I 
have it not now, when young in health and vigor, when shall I 
have it.'* Now is the time for intense, steady, persevering appli- 
cation, and by such efforts alone can I ever hope to overcome the 
errors of my youthful education." 

A little later he notes the discussion in the press, of the right of 
foreign nations to compel the States of this Confederation in- 
dividually to pay their debts by suing them in the Supreme Court 
of the United States. He anticipates a recently applied remedy 
by saying that while it appears plain enough from the Constitu- 
tion that States of this Union or a foreign State may sue in that 
court, the question occurs, can States purchase the bonds of in- 
debted States and sue them, when those from whom they purchase 
have not the right.'* 

In the beginning of 1844 he had to take a step which required 
some courage on his part, and was eminently characteristic of 
his unselfish devotion to the interests of his family. That he 
recognized its importance is fully attested by the care he takes to 
append to the entry in his journal: "This is written at the office, 
23 Nassau Street, in my first year of law study, February 21, 1844." 
The subject was started by a letter from his father about arrang- 
ing the business of the old farm, and on this he makes the follow- 
ing comment: "I have much to say about my unwillingness and 
yet my desire to take the old place, feeling as I do it may be a com- 
fort to the family in case of any sickness, and a home for any of 
my brothers or sisters who in the hour of need may require it. 
This consideration, and the consideration that I wish to keep the 
old place in the family, will decide me to take it. But I can read- 
ily foresee that it will be a burden and a trouble to me, as my busi- 
ness will be here and much attention will be required there. I 

24 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

shall find It difficult to meet the necessary expenses for repairs, 
etc.; difficult to procure tenants; difficult to suit all parties. 
Father will, good and kindly disposed as he is, be somewhat re- 
strained, and this may make it unpleasant for him, though at all 
hazards he shall live comfortably. In fact, the farm, without 
great caution, prudence and foresight will drain every cent I can 
get and perplex me in my affairs here. But for the good of the 
family^ and nothing else, will I take it. Present duty demands it, 
and I will do it at all hazards, and trust to caution and good 
management to clear myself and benefit the family." 

His sisters Lucy and Mary had for some time conducted a 
school of their own for young ladies at Fifth Avenue — an insti- 
tution which for over a generation played a very important part 
in the educational life of New York — and Andrew was only one 
of the men who later achieved distinction who conducted, for a 
time, a special course of instruction there. How seriously he 
took the work of his class in history in the school may be inferred 
from the following entry in his diary of January lo, 1844: "I 
am now thinking of, but rather conclude I shan't accomplish, the 
task of writing for my recitations at the school a set of lectures on 
the Constitution and jurisprudence of our country, making them 
rather general and simple. To do this philosophically, I shall 
have to commence at about the beginning of the fourteenth cen- 
tury and take a review of all the nations of Europe at this date, 
gradually bringing the features in each which bear on the for- 
mation of society in this country together, till I come to the 
Declaration of Independence; then the course will be clear. I 
fear, indeed I know, I have not the patience or perseverance to 
accomplish such a task. If I had, it would be most useful to me 
and very serviceable to my class. I am desirous to apply myself to 
a task of this nature to give a system and tangibility to my own 
reflections and acquisitions, and to place them in a way to test 
my own powers by exposing them to the criticism of others." 

A year later, January 16, 1845, he Is negotiating with Mr. 
Boorman for the purchase of the house at i Fifth Avenue for his 
sisters. As a contribution to the history of real estate values In 
New York, the following is not without Interest: "He (Mr. 
Boorman) off"ers on the part of Mrs. Smith (who formerly con- 

25 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

ducted a school there) to sell the house for $12,500, but I rather 
preferred taking a lease of the house for three years at even a high 
rate, with the privilege of purchase at any time within three 
years at $12,500. I think the price high, but situated as my 
sisters are, it seems the best arrangement that could be effected." 

On April 5th, he is sworn in to the Superior Court as attorney 
and counsellor, though his period of studentship was so far from 
having expired that how to finish it under the most favorable 
conditions is giving him some concern. On April 19th, he ex- 
presses a desire to get into the office of James T. Brady to finish 
his studentship, and on the 25th he writes: "I would like very 
much to get into an office with some old lawyer, to do business 
with him and finish my course of study, but no opening as yet 
presents itself." By May ist he has come to a conclusion which 
he records as follows: "After many negotiations, somewhat un- 
willing, I have taken an office for myself to go into business on 
my own hook next year. Mr. Bloomfield has consented to give 
me a certificate of studentship in his office for the remaining part 
of my term of study. The office is situated at 14 Wall Street, 
a small room with a very nice Brussels carpet, which I was by 
the way compelled to take with the room. This step I have taken 
quite unwillingly, but circumstances seem to drive me into it." 
While he has some qualms about his ability to make both ends 
meet, he still declines an appointment offered to him of Clerk of 
the Marine Court for five years at $1,500 a year. 

The philosophy of life as it appeared to Andrew H. Green at 
the age of twenty-five seems worth reproducing here. He had 
been reading the life of Robert Burns, and he thus moralizes on 
its lessons: "Burns was a man who craved fame; conscious of 
the position of society in which he was born, and coveting a higher 
or rather another, rank, he struggled unceasingly with circum- 
stances, and generally exhibited a degree of independence and 
freedom of spirit which, throwing aside conventionalisms as it 
does, is by no means the sure way to the favor of one's contem- 
poraries. If a man hankers after present fame, he may bid 
good-bye to an unshackled spirit, but if content to work on amidst 
the sneers and cavils of those around him, fearless and regardless 
of smiles or frowns, he will leave a name behind him which may 

26 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

last and be revered — perhaps. And though it may not at least 
while he lives, he will have no labyrinthine conscience to wander 
about in, every time he has a moment's rest. With a mind at 
ease with itself, and a hand and heart always open to every- 
body's wrongs and wants, when the hour comes to leave this 
sphere of existence, he can wrap the drapery of his couch about 
him, conscious that there awaits him a loftier and holier field for 
a nobler and more elevated existence." 

The vein of tenderness except in reference to his brothers and 
sisters, or to Samuel G. Arnold, does not often occur in his diary 
or letters. But here is an entry dated July 8, 1845, which re- 
veals the depth of certain feelings of his nature whose existence 
he seems hardly to have acknowledged to himself. It is apropos 
of a visit he paid at the Astor House to a young lady, Miss Hiller, 
whom he had known as a former pupil of his sister's: "Of all 
the women I have seen, this young girl is one of the very few who 
have made any peculiar impression upon me. She is artless, 
gentle, confiding; seems to think ill of no one. She is one of the 
pure ones who seem to have lost their way and wandered down 
from their blissful abode to dwell for a time among the haunts of 
men. As she read over a note which I handed to her from sister 
Mary, tears gathered in her full black eye and she seemed to 
show in her face the tenderest affection. I have never before seen 
such a picture of feeling, divested of all art and affectation. But 
she is going away to-morrow morning to be married to a young 
gentleman up the river by the name of Tabor, this in compli- 
ance with the desire of her friends. There is one consolation 
about this which is one drawn from the apprehensions for the 
future. One may almost quench present feeling by the thought 
that the happiness of so lovely a being, if made dependent on his 
exertions and efforts, might be disturbed by the little occurrences 
of unkind feeling or the contingencies of fortune. Do men often 
marry the women that they most esteem or love.'' Judging from 
my own feelings, I should think that where a man's affection was 
placed on any one person, a regard for her happiness would lead 
him to distrust himself, and too much think of her future enjoy- 
ment to allow him to gratify his own dearest wishes. I have 
been unconsciously drawn into the above train of thought." 

27 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

His admission to practise in the Superior Court shows a tan- 
gible result in the case of Annette Eyers vs. George Clayton in 
which he got a verdict for the plaintiff for $i,ooo. Two days 
later he is engaged in another case in the Court of Sessions, in 
which he also gets a verdict. Though he had thus some employ- 
ment, his financial prospects had a rather sombre tinge, and he 
makes this characteristic entry in his journal of October 25th: 
*'My money is about running out and there seems nothing 
ahead, but that most of all things to be abhorred and strongly 
abominated — a recourse to credit. I hate it cordially — that 
is, I hate to use it, and won't if it can be avoided. Good Lord, 
deliver me from ever being overwhelmed in that sluggish dead 
sea of debt." 

Meanwhile, his relations, personal and political, with Mr. 
Samuel J. Tilden had been growing more intimate, and the begin- 
ning of a lifelong business connection is thus chronicled under 
date of December 30, 1845: "With Mr. Tilden much of the day 
on business matters. I am contemplating a business connection 
with him, whether for better or for worse remains to be proved. 
He is surrounded with political hangers-on, which in my hum- 
ble opinion is of no especial advantage in a business point of view, 
and however determined one's intentions may be to devote one- 
self to the strict pursuit of one's avocation exclusively, the con- 
tinual influence and intercourse of others of different views on 
exciting and important subjects must to a great degree tend to 
divide the mind. Political aspirations are implanted and ambi- 
tion aroused, which require the sternest determination to repress 
and remove from a contiguity which might prove injurious." 
On January 8, 1846, he moved around to 11 Pine Street, the office 
of Mr. Tilden, who had been elected a member of the Legislature 
and was accordingly bound to spend a good deal of his time in 
Albany that winter. 



28 



CHAPTER III 

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATION WITH MR. TILDEN COMMENTS ON 

CONTEMPORARY DEMOCRACY APPOINTMENT AS SCHOOL COM- 
MISSIONER SERVICE ON THE BOARD OF EDUCATION 

CRITICISM OF THE APPORTIONMENT OF THE PROCEEDS 
OF THE STATE TAX 

ON January 19, 1846, Andrew H. Green was sworn in as attor- 
ney and counsellor of the Supreme Court and, ten days later, 
of the Court of Common Pleas. His apprentice years are 
over, and his professional career has begun in earnest. To have grad- 
uated in a little over ten years from the position of message boy in 
a merchant's office to a partnership with one of the most distin- 
guished young lawyers in New York must rank as a somewhat 
uncommon achievement. It is significant of the position which 
he already occupied in the community that he had been twice 
elected vestryman of the Church of the Redemption, and that 
this honor was conferred on him a third time on April 14, 1846. 

His participation in politics had been somewhat active for two 
or three years preceding his association with Mr. Tilden. We 
have already seen, at the age of seventeen, how genuine was his 
satisfaction over the Whig victory of November, 1837. A year 
later he is frankly exultant over the still more decided triumph, 
and gives vent to his emotions in the following fashion: "Huzza! 
Huzza!! Huzza!!! The Loco Focos are rowed up Salt River, 
clear to its source! The Whigs are triumphant! Huzza! 
Huzza!! C. C. Cambreling turned out. The Whigs have the 
entire delegation to Congress from this district, the first time in 
twenty years." Before reaching man's estate his political views 
evidently underwent a change, and the men with whom he ap- 
pears to have had the closest affiliation were all Democrats. His 
acquaintance with Mr. Tilden ripened into intimacy shortly after 
his return from Trinidad. The two men frequently met at 
social gatherings, at the house of his sisters and elsewhere, in 

29 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

company with men like Chancellor Walworth, William CuUen 
Bryant, Parke Godwin, and John Bigelow. With the last named 
he had evidently many ties of association. On August i, 1843, 
he makes this record in his journal: "Occupied very intensely at 
the office all day. Mr. John Bigelow left town and left me in 
charge of his business," an occupation which seems to have lasted 
for a fortnight. On August 17th occurs this entry: "This 
evening attended a primary political meeting to elect three dele- 
gates to Tammany Hall. Met Mr. Tilden there and after he 
had made a speech and the meeting broke up, we took ice-cream 
at Alhambra, walked up about Union Park, talking until about 
eleven o'clock." 

On September 1st, and following dates of 1843 his full-fledged 
Democracy finds expression this way: "My time has been some- 
what occupied for the last day or two writing for and reading 
newspapers; this is for my own improvement as well as for ad- 
vancing Mr. Calhoun's cause." . . . "Met some Calhoun 
men who are now all alive and sanguine as to Mr. Calhoun's 
prospects. A great meeting will be held on Monday, and many 
of Mr. Calhoun's friends in their enthusiasm seem desirous, at 
least, if not anxious, that a break should occur between Calhoun 
and Van Buren. I think this not advisable, as Mr. Van Buren 
is our second best man, and if upon a fair and honorable trial Mr. 
Van Buren gets the nomination, I will go for him. If the Demo- 
cratic party splits, the probability is that either the Whigs or 
some other man not Calhoun or Van Buren will get the nomina- 
tion." . . . "Went up to the City Hall, where was held a 
meeting of the officers of the mass meeting which assembeld at 
half-past five and was held in the Park. Mr. James T. Brady 
and others made speeches in favor of Mr. Calhoun and a series of 
resolutions were passed, about 4,000 being present. This is the 
first grand move in this city in favor of Mr. Calhoun. Among 
the officers appointed were some whose private characters are not 
unexceptionable, and who ought not to be brought into the ranks 
as leaders in a cause whose chief is eminently pure morally, and 
unspotted. I am sorry to see this in the beginning, but politi- 
cians seem to think that men's characters are of no account so 
long as they work well. I am also sorry to see a disposition on 

30 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

the part of the Calhoun men to push their own views to lengths 
which may be the cause of a rupture in the party. I hold to 
every man's maintaining his own opinion, but in this case con- 
ciliation on both sides may prevent a rupture, which as things 
now appear there is very little hope of avoiding, and the election 
of the President will go to the House." 

Mr. Tilden was Mr. Green's senior by only six years, having 
been born at New Lebanon on February 9, 18 14. Both were 
country-bred, and both had to make their own way in the world. 
Differing fundamentally in temperament, they had much in 
common in their intellectual tastes and political convictions. 
Two years before Mr. Green's business association with Mr. 
Tilden, the older man had evidently conceived a solid respect for 
the judgment of the younger. On January 10, 1844, Mr. Green 
writes: "This evening till twelve o'clock spent with Mr. S. J. 
Tilden in his room. He read to me the controversy carried on 
some time ago in the Evening Post against Edward Curtis; had 
a good deal of other talk." One of the most interesting episodes 
of Mr. Tilden's early political career was his starting of a demo- 
cratic newspaper — the Morning News — in the editing of which 
he had the cooperation of Mr. John L. O'SuUivan, formerly the 
editor of the Democratic Review. The News made its first appear- 
ance on August 21, 1844, ^^^ "l^he reason for its existence was that 
the Democratic party had not the support of a single daily morning 
newspaper in New York of any influence or repute. Moreover, 
as Mr. Bigelow states: "Mr. Tilden had by his speeches and 
writings established such relations with the wage-earning class, 
from which the native American party was largely recruited, 
and he enjoyed their confidence to so much larger extent than any 
other prominent Democrat in New York City, that he was urged 
from all sides to meet the needs of the party by establishing a paper 
himself." 

During its brief term of existence — it died on February 9, 
1846 — Mr. Green was a frequent contributor to the columns of 
the News, from whose active management Mr. Tilden retired 
after the fall election of 1844. In spite of the confidence reposed 
in him by the wage-earning class, Mr. Tilden was evidently not a 
favorite with certain elements of Tammany Hall. On October 

31 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

31, 1845, ^^' Green records in his journal: ''Quite a rowdy- 
meeting of Tammany" Hall last night, as I see by the papers. It 
was moved that my friend Mr. Tilden be stricken from the Assem- 
bly ticket. This was an operation of a loafer crew." Mr. Green 
set at once to work to counteract the efforts of what he calls "the 
spawn of Tammany Hall," and he is rewarded by finding on elec- 
tion day that, while Mr. Tilden ran about 250 votes behind the 
highest in his district, he was far above some of the ticket, "in 
spite of misrepresentation and malignity." Mr. Green had been 
urged by his friends to accept also a nomination for the Assembly, 
but he concluded to stick to his business. About the time that 
he reached this resolution there occurs in his diary the following 
interesting series of reflections on the science of government: 

"If this nuisance of a high tariff could by any possibility be 
abated, the agricultural interests of this country might be much 
advanced, relieved from their depression, and at least placed on a 
basis equally favorable with the other interests of the country. 
I am not yet able to perceive the formidable difficulties in the 
way of a system of direct taxation, provided a plan can be devised 
which shall reach all classes. The assertion, so dogmatically 
made, that the people will never put their hands in their pockets 
and pay money for the support of government, wants something 
else besides emphatic asseveration to support it. Either the 
people will pay direct taxes, or they will pay none if they know it; 
and if they don't know when they pay taxes, it is quite time for 
the prudent, economical administration of government that they 
did. The Treasury should just supply the moderate wants of 
the administration of government; an overflowing treasury 
brings with it corruption and fraud. It has been the curse of 
nations, and, profiting by the experience of the past, it becomes the 
present to avoid the instruments of their overthrow." 

In the fall of 1847 there was another movement among Mr. 
Green's friends to have him nominated for the State Senate, but 
evidently without any encouragement on his part. In the midst 
of the steadily Increasing demands of his profession his Interest 
in politics, nevertheless, continued unabated. How thoroughly 
sincere and unselfish it was may be Inferred from this entry in his 
journal of October 11, 1847: "Politics in this State are in a very 

32 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

bad way. The Democratic party is divided, or, rather, it has been 
overlaid with a band of corrupt and worthless conservatives who 
stifle every effort for reform and progress. The radical portion 
of the party will not submit to the dictation of currupt men, and 
the Syracuse nominations will be thrown overboard, as they ought 
to be, for no man having in mind his moral responsibilities can lend 
his aid to the elevation to office of important trust of men whose 
whole career shows them to be actuated but by the principle of 
self-interest. The party were better in a minority, and there it 
will for a time go." 

His first active participation in public affairs begins with his 
appointment as School Commissioner for the Fourteenth Ward on 
May 13, 1848. There is no record of his earliest impressions of 
the working of the public-school system of New York before he 
became an active participant in the work of the Board of Educa- 
tion. That he was closely observant of most of the details of 
the somewhat cumbrous mechanism which directed the work of 
education in a city where its problems were unusually difficult 
becomes sufficiently obvious when he rises from the minor posi- 
tion of one of the school officers of his ward to be also a member 
of the central Board. The annual report of the Board for 1855 
is chiefly Mr. Green's work, and the following extract from it is 
unmistakably his. It has as direct a reference to the city govern- 
ment of 1 91 3 as it had to that of fifty-eight years ago, albeit the 
scandals of Fernando Wood's administration of the mayoralty 
of the City of New York differ somewhat from the abuses against 
which the municipal reformer has to struggle to-day: 

It needs not that anything be here said on the enormous and extravagant 
cost of maintaining our city government. The people see and feel this at 
every turn. The poor man, wearied with six days' toil, thankful for even 
the scanty repast that is spread for himself, his companion, and their little 
ones, as surely counts out of his weekly wages a portion for the dishonesty 
and corruption that riot in our municipal affairs, as though he actually dropped 
his coin into the palm of their vulgar, perfumed and jewelried representative. 

The laboring masses of this great city need to reflect on this. Those comforts 
and luxuries which result from the gains of honest industry and frugality are 
sanctioned by society; their possessor rightly enjoys the fruits of his own 
labor without envy; but the equipage guided by the same hand that has robbed 
the humble pedestrian of his wages is odious in his sight as it rolls along, 
flinging from its swift wheels the dirt of the highway upon his garment. 

33 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



It is the duty of every reflecting man to examine into the public expenditures, 
and discriminate in his judgment upon those who preside over them. Our 
public affairs require the supervision and aid of experienced, able and faithful, 
men; and it is altogether wrong that the public servant who faithfully dis- 
charges his duty should be overwhelmed with the same contempt and abuse 
that are heaped upon the faithless and corrupt. Indiscriminative abuse 
and opprobrium never will effect a remedy for these evils, and no relief will 
be secured until the public intelligence shall honor the officer to whom honor 
belongs, and disgrace the man who deserves it, and disgrace him in such a 
manner as that his ill-gotten gains shall be a constant reproach to him. 

In the same report he urges a wise and economical expenditure 
of the money intrusted to the Board of Education, and a judi- 
cious administration of the school system, as the surest method 
of commending it to the people, and enlisting their confidence 
and interest in its support. 

Could the taxpayers of this City [he says] be shown that the appropriations 
for the support of the common schools of the City are judiciously applied — 
that there is no wastefulness or extravagance — that every dollar expended 
by the Board is expended in such a manner as to make it go the farthest in 
doing its work; that our teachers are paid somewhat in accordance with the 
value of the services they render, and with some reference to competency; 
that locations of new schools are made with main reference to the convenience 
of the people, and that our school structures are well planned, and thoroughly 
and economically constructed; then we should hear no complaint of the cost 
of the schools, no charge of extravagance, and no dissatisfaction with the 
administration of the system. 

From this time forward, the life of Andrew H. Green flows in 
two distinct channels — that of his professional business and 
family relations, and that of his public usefulness. As the record 
of nearly half a century of his almost uninterrupted public ser- 
vice is of unusual copiousness and interest, it is to this side of his 
activity that the remainder of this memoir will be chiefly devoted. 
That the qualities which Mr. Green displayed in his early public 
career made a strong impression outside of the circle in which he 
had hitherto moved may be inferred from his election as president 
of the Board of Education in January, 1856, and from the recep- 
tion which it received from the newspapers. Mr. Green was 
elected a member of the Board of Education for three successive 
terms of two years each, the elections occurring on November 
7, 1854, November 4, 1856, and December 7, 1858, and the terms 

34 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

of office beginning the January following. He therefore served 
for six years, from January i, 1855, to December 31, i860, in 
addition to his previous service as one of the school officers of 
his ward, which began with 1848. The Board then consisted 
of forty-four members, there being two from each of the twenty- 
two wards. One member from each ward was elected annually 
to serve for two years. At the organizing meeting of the Board, 
January 9, 1856, there was a protracted contest over the presi- 
dency. Twenty-two ballots were taken without an election, the 
leading candidates being David Webb, William H. Neilson, and 
Nelson J. Waterbury. At the next meeting, January i6th, the 
contest was renewed. Seventeen more ballots, making thirty- 
nine in all, were taken, with no better result. Mr. Green's name 
appears on the twenty-eighth, thirty-second, and thirty-third 
ballots with one vote each, and on the thirty-fifth with three. 
The fortieth ballot gave Mr. Green 21 out of the 40 votes cast; 
and by resolution his election was made unanimous. 

The Evening Post referred to the new president of the Board 
in the following terms: "Andrew H. Green, a rising member of 
the New York Bar was elected by a handsome majority. He has 
been rather distinguished during his connection with the Board 
of Education, which commenced a year ago, for his punctilious 
regard for economy in the expenditures of the Board, and in a 
rigorous discharge of his official duties. His election is the best 
possible evidence of the excellent timber of which the new Board 
is composed. The compliment is one which Mr. Green doubtless 
appreciates and of which he may well feel proud. He succeeds to 
a position which has been filled by men of mark in their respective 
spheres, and he cannot fail in any point of his official duty with- 
out detracting from the dignity of the office." 

Speaking of these associates of his on the Board, a year later 
Mr. Green alluded to "that uniform courtesy and reasonable 
concession to, and regard for, the views of each other that have 
characterized the official intercourse of the members of this 
Board, which have done so much to regulate and aid the prog- 
ress of its business and which have maintained for the whole 
body a high character for dignity and responsibility." Refer- 
ring to the complimentary resolutions that had been adopted in 

35 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

regard to the performance of his duties as president, he said: 
"In the discharge of the parHamentary duties that pertain to 
the office of president of this Board, I have aimed at impar- 
tiaUty and such dispatch of business as was consistent with its 
inteUigent performance; in the financial department at a watch- 
ful scrutiny of all claims, the prompt discharge of those entitled 
to payment, and an equally prompt and decisive rejection of all 
those conceived in fraud or extravagance; and in all departments 
within my sphere of duty, I have sought to discourage ostentation 
and wastefulness, to enfore the rules of this Board and the laws 
of the land, looking for no personal advantage other than that 
which flows from the diligent and faithful execution of a high 
public trust." 

The enthusiasm for New York, which is one of the best marked 
characteristics of Mr. Green's whole career, finds expression in 
the address to the Board of Education in which he bids farewell 
to the year 1856 and to his associates on the Board whose official 
term was then about to expire. He says: "Though we shall not 
all again assemble here, yet we are all citizens of a great city, 
whose glory is our pride, and as we meet hereafter in our busy 
streets the sympathies here implanted will kindle at the remem- 
brance of common exertions for the diff"usion of that intelligence 
and virtue, which, through all times will avail more for her ex- 
tension, adornment and security than all the walls of masonry or 
gates of brass." 

In the year before his election as president of the Board Mr. 
Green was at the head of a special committee appointed to con- 
sider the method of apportioning the tax annually levied by the 
State for the support of the common schools, and the method of 
distributing the moneys raised by such tax. The report pre- 
pared in response to this resolution was in every way a notable 
one, and deals with a grievance of the city taxpayer which is as 
substantial to-day as it was fifty-seven years ago. Mr. Green 
showed how by the system of laying a tax according to the valu- 
ation of property, and of distributing it according to the popu- 
lation. New York was compelled to pay for State education 
$271,639 annually, while it received, under the rule of distri- 
bution adopted in 185 1 only $100,000, leaving the city a loser 

36 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

by nearly $172,000. The State was divided into 11,789 school 
districts, and by the law of 1851 one third of the school money 
was apportioned among these districts, so that each district 
should have an equal amount, without any reference to the num- 
ber attending school or to the population of the district. Thus 
the County of St. Lawrence, with a population of 68,617, and an 
assessed valuation of $14,561,665, is divided into 465 districts, 
and receives of the one third $13,844, while the City of New York, 
with 515,547 population in 1850, and an assessed valuation of 
$413,631,432, has but 218 districts and receives $6,490. So also 
Delaware County is taxed $5,403 and receives $9,405, and Essex, 
which contributes only ^2,909, receives ^7,072. Mr. Green 
enumerated thirteen counties, with a population of 515,387, being 
160 less than that of the City of New York, which received of the 
annual third the amount of $102,448, while New York received 
only $6,490. The distribution of the proceeds of the common 
school fund, which consisted of the proceeds of all lands belong- 
ing to the State on January i, 1823, was equally unjust to this 
city. The amount then divided from this source was $800,000 
a year, and of this sum thirteen counties, with an aggregate 
population of 515,388, which raised by tax only $80,224, received 
$228,739, while New York, which raised $257,816, received but 
$132,711. During his tenure of office as president of the Board 
of Education, Mr. Green returned frequently to the inequality 
of the incidence of State taxation. In his address to the Board 
in 1857 — an extremely comprehensive and eminently business- 
like document — he had this to say on the subject of State taxes: 

All these general State taxes operate unequally upon this and other localities 
of the State in several particulars. Where property is aggregated, as in cities, 
it is more easily ascertainable, and the valuation upon which the tax is based 
is much higher than that placed upon property in other parts of the State. 

Indeed the valuations placed upon property throughout the State are 
unequal, and so palpably unjust, as to demand the immediate application 
of the simple remedy that would be furnished by the appointment by a Board 
of State Assessors, whose duty it should be to equalize the county valuations. 

It is easy to see that where a tax to be borne equally throughout the State, 
is raised by a percentage, the valuation made by counties, the tendency is to 
reduce county values to escape the fair proportion of the burden of the State 
tax. 

A farm of equal value with one lying in an adjoining county is valued 50 
per cent. less. It may be urged that this is a remote matter, that neither 

37 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

concerns the operations of this Board, nor calls for any action on its part. 
It is neither remote nor unimportant. In 1856 this law authorizing a per- 
centage for educational purposes was passed; it aflfects this city seriously, and 
it is at least the right of this Board to notice legislative action for educational 
purposes that so palpably affects the interests of this city. 

In this connection the fact may be recalled that a free-school 
system absolutely supported by taxation dates, in New York 
State, no further back than 1849. The Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1846 was urged to submit such a proposition to the people, 
but without success, and it was not until three years later that the 
approval of the act establishing free schools throughout the State 
was secured by popular vote It met with bitter opposition in the 
rural districts, and the question of its repeal was submitted to the 
people, only to be negatived by a large majority, chiefly composed 
of the votes of the larger cities. But the opponents of the law 
persevered, and it had to be admitted that some method must be 
found of obviating the objection that the holders of poperty were 
compelled to bear the burden of educating the children of those 
having no taxable property. 

Meanwhile, the question had been taken to the courts and the 
highest court of the State finally pronounced some of the essen- 
tial features of the law unconstitutional. It was the working 
of the act of 1851, under which funds were provided for the sup- 
port of the common schools of the State, which fell under the 
criticism of Mr. Green — a criticism which he had occasion to 
renew in his second annual address as president of the Board of 
Education. Under cover of remedying the obvious injustice 
done to the city by the unequal division of the school districts, 
the Legislature had passed a law whereby each teacher who had 
been employed in the schools for the space of six months should 
count as one district. By this method the city would return 
somewhere about 1,500 districts in 1857, instead of 262, as in 
1856, and derive about $45,000, instead of about $25,000, as 
heretofore. But the removal of the minor grievance was accom- 
panied by the imposition of a greater one. The annual tax to 
be raised on the whole property of the State for purposes of educa- 
tion was increased from a fixed sum of $800,000 to a percentage of 
three fourths of a mill, thus increasing the sum to be raised by the 

38 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

city, and at the same time retaining a rule of distribution that 
unjustly, in 1856, sent $271,630 out of the city, and in 1857 raised 
upon the property of the city the sum of $383,805 to be dis- 
tributed in aid of schools in other parts of the State. 

The address from which these figures are taken is probably the 
ablest and most comprehensive presentation which can be found 
in the entire history of the Board of matters aifecting the organi- 
zation and administration of the public-school system of New 
York. Every newspaper in the city discussed it, and whether 
agreeing with its conclusions or not, paid a tribute of respect to 
the high character of the ability it displayed and of the motives 
which inspired it. It must be remembered that the population 
of the city numbered then about 700,000, half of foreign birth, 
and that the problem of providing for the education of 150,000 
children of school age and of extremely diverse origin was one for 
whose adequate solution there were no precedents to draw upon. 
The problem was not made any simpler by the benevolent efforts 
of some good people to support a number of so-called industrial 
schools for the accommodation of destitute children, and by the 
frank disapproval of the whole system by the Catholic hierarchy. 
The Freeman^ s Journal declared that the chief object of the sup- 
porters of the industrial schools was the proselytism of Catho- 
lics, and it defined the attitude of the Church to the public-school 
system as follows: 

Taken as a whole, he ( Mr. Green) certainly shows a disposition to make 
the best of the system at the head of which he is placed. If he is himself 
disappointed, or fails of doing anything serviceable, it is not he that is in fault, 
but the undemocratic, un-American scheme of taking out of the hands of the 
parent the responsibility of educating his children. French Jacobinism 
copying the despotism of Louis XV and Joseph II, sought to absorb into the 
State as much as possible of the rights sacred to man. American democracy 
is the very reverse of this, and seeks to preserve to men as much freedom as 
possible, and to limit the State to the smallest number of its necessary functions. 
Religion and education are out of the functions of the American State, by 
a twofold reason. In the first place, as in industrial pursuits, the State desires 
to leave the individual in possession of his utmost practicable liberty, and 
unoppressed by the competition of the Government. In the second place, 
religion, and education as its co-relative, belong to a sphere which the American 
State wisely owns itself incompetent to control, as it can control material 
interests. Wherever State officials step into, take out of the hands of parents 
their proper work — of providing and sanctioning the teachers and the instruc- 

39 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

tion of their children — there we will soon find confusion, fraud, and failure 
written all over the educational chart. 

It was Mr. Green's good fortune to command the respect of 
all the parties to this controversy. Commenting on the failure 
of the Board of Education adequately to discharge the duties 
of general oversight and supervision whether as relates to the 
expenditures of the local boards, or their managment of the 
schools, the Tribune refers to the lately published address of 
President Green in these terms: "With every disposition to 
view the whole system and its administration with a favorable 
eye, that gentleman is too well informed, too candid, and too 
much a friend to the cause of education, not to point out this 
defect, and to call loudly for a change." The Times character- 
ized the president of the Board of Education as "a gentleman in 
every respect fitted for and worthy of the responsible position he 
holds." When, in 1858, Mr. Green declined to accept a reelec- 
tion as president of the Board of Education, the Evening Express 
urged those members of the Board who had at heart the interests 
of the city schools to unite and if possible prevail upon Mr. 
Green to accept a renomination. But his thoughts were already 
turned in another direction, and a work with which his name was 
to be imperishably associated began with the appointment of the 
nine commissioners for the laying out of Central Park, at the 
head of whom stood the name of Andrew H. Green, 



40 




ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

at about the age of thirty 

Reproduced by IVm. L. Koehne, Chicago, from a dagutrreoiype. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE NEW YORK CITY PARK SYSTEM — EARLY 

LEGISLATION FOR CENTRAL PARK THE POLITICAL PERIL IN 

ITS RELATION TO PARK CONSTRUCTION THE STATE 

COMMISSION LEGISLATION OF 1857 THE PARK AS A 

PROBLEM IN LANDSCAPE GARDENING ORGANI- 
ZATION OF THE FIRST PARK COMMISSION 

OLD New York grew on the lines that nature had marked 
out for it; the prevision of man had a good deal less to do 
with tracing the course of its streets than "those earliest 
of civil engineers, the cows." Even in the New York to which 
Andrew H. Green came as a boy he records that the hogs used 
to run about the streets, and there was no city above Houston 
Street. The period of rapid growth had begun, but municipal 
ideals remained primitive, and of public taste there was little or 
none. Philip Hone was one of the aristocrats of his time, and had 
at least as high an endowment of what passed for culture in the 
New York of that day as any of his fashionable friends. How 
slender was the appeal which the picturesque aspects of the seagirt 
city made to him and his class may be inferred from the naive 
admission in his diary of April lo, 1835: 

"The weather being fine and springlike, I walked for an hour 
before dinner with my wife on the Battery. Strange as it is, I do 
not think that either of us had done such a thing in the last seven 
years; and what a beautiful spot it is! The grounds are in fine 
order; the noble bay, with the opposite shores of New Jersey, 
Staten and Long Islands, vessels of every description, from the 
noble, well-appointed Liverpool packet to the little market 
craft, and steamers arriving from every point, gave life and ani- 
mation to a prospect unexcelled by any city view in the world. 
It would be worth traveling one hundred miles out of one's way 
in a foreign country to get a sight of, and yet we citizens of New 

41 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

York, who have It all under our noses (his house was near the 
corner of Park Place and Broadway), seldom enjoy it. Like all 
other enjoyments, it loses its value from being too easily ob- 
tained," 

According to Charles Dickens, the citizens of New York of a 
time seven years later were as indifferent to the objectionable 
things under their noses as they were to the charm of the view 
from the Battery. Here is a bit of Broadway — "a wide and 
bustling street, which from the Battery Gardens to Its opposite 
termination in a country road, may be four miles long," as Dick- 
ens saw and described It in the summer of 1842: 

"We are going to cross here. Take care of the pigs. Two 
portly sows are trotting up behind this carriage, and a select 
party of half a dozen gentleman hogs are just now turned the 
corner. Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself. 
He has only one ear; having parted with the other to vagrant 
dogs in the course of his city rambles. . . . They are the city 
scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are, having for the 
most part, scanty, brown backs like the lids of old horsehair 
trunks; spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They have 
long, gaunt legs, too, and such peaked snouts, that If one of them 
could be persuaded to sit for his profile, nobody would recognize 
it for a pig's likeness. They are never attended upon, or fed, 
or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own resources In 
early life, and become preternaturally knowing In consequence. 
Every pig knows where he lives, much better than anybody could 
tell him. At this hour, just as evening is closing in, you will see 
them roaming toward bed by scores, eating their way to the last. 
Occasionally, some youth among them who has overeaten him- 
self, or has been much worried by dogs, trots shrinklngly home- 
ward like a prodigal son; but this is a rare case; perfect self- 
possession and self-reliance, and immovable composure, being 
their foremost attributes." 

It is not too much to say that the desire to beautify the city 
received Its first great Impetus with the beginning of Central 

42 



s I 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

Park, and that Andrew H. Green was one of the very few men in 
New York at that time who had any adequate conception of the 
relation of that great work to the municipal development of the 
future. It is true, there had been made a kind of plan on which 
the future city that was to occupy the upper expanse of Man- 
hattan Island was to be laid out. That was done under the act 
of 1807, and Gouverneur Morris, Simeon De Witt, and John 
Rutherford were the commissioners appointed by Mayor De Witt 
Clinton to lay out the streets and roads of the city under this law. 
These gentlemen had large views, for their time, and although 
it took much less than a century hopelessly to dwarf their con- 
ceptions of the future of New York, they found it necessary in 
their report to the Mayor, in 1809, to put on record the follow- 
ing apology: "It may be a subject of merriment that the Com- 
missioners have provided space for a greater population than is 
gathered at any spot this side of China. They have, in this respect, 
been governed by the shape of the ground. It is not improbable 
that considerable numbers may be collected at Harlem before 
the high hills to the southward of it shall be built upon as a city, 
and it is improbable that for centuries to come the grounds 
north of Harlem Flat will be covered with houses. To have 
come short of the extent laid out might therefore have defeated 
just expectations; and to have gone further might have furnished 
material to the pernicious spirit of speculation." This was 
apropos of the location of the blocks which were to be 'occupied 
by buildings above First Street on the East Side and Thirteenth 
Street on the West Side, and the provision of a parade ground for 
the militia which was to extend from Twenty-third to Thirty- 
fourth Street, and from Third to Seventh Avenue. 

The first city park was established in 1732, when the Corpo- 
ration permitted John Chambers, Peter Bayard, and Peter Jay 
to rent the little area at the foot of Broadway for a Bowling Green 
at a rental of one peppercorn per annum. Up to 1850 the total 
area of the city's parks did not exceed 140 acres. The ten and 
one half acres of Battery Park were recovered from the sea, and 
it was subsequently enlarged on the water side to double that 
area. In colonial days City Hall Park was the common and 
military parade ground; Washington Square was made a Potter's 

43 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Field in 1797; laid out as a parade ground thirty years later; was 
used again as a burial plot for the victims of the cholera, and 
was finally sodded and improved as a park. Madison Square, 
too, began in 1794 as a Potter's Field. It was included by the 
commissioners of 1807 in their parade ground of three hundred 
acres above alluded to; was cut down to eighty acres three years 
later, and in 1829 all but the existing six and three fourths acres 
had disappeared from the map. Tompkins Square dates from 
1833, and Manhattan Square and Mount Morris Square were 
opened in 1836. St. John's Park, known as Hudson Square, and 
now covered by the New York Central freight depot, was an 
enterprise of the Trinity Corporation to attract residence to the 
district. Gramercy Park, a reservation of one and one half acres, 
was also made for purely private use. 

It is difficult to say precisely when and where the idea of Cen- 
tral Park originated, although the honor of broaching it has been 
claimed for Andrew J. Downing, who, in some letters to the 
Horticulturist, in the autumn of 1850 pointed out the lack of 
open public spaces and places for common recreation in New 
York, and urged the necessity of providing for a great park. It 
is certain that on May 5th of the following year Mayor Kings- 
land sent in a brief special message to the Common Council 
advocating the reservation of a large park north of the City Hall, 
but without mentioning any locality. "It seems obvious to me," 
he said, "that the entire tongue of land south of a line drawn 
across the (City Hall) Park is destined to be devoted entirely and 
solely to commercial purposes. . . . The public parks and 
places of New York are not in keeping with the character of the 
city. . . . There is no park on the island deserving of the 
name." The Common Council, approving the recommendation, 
voted to ask the Legislature for authority to acquire the land. 
The result was the passage of an act on July 11, 1851, making it 
lawful for the city to acquire for park purposes the lands lying 
between Avenue A, East River, Sixty-fourth and Sixty-sixth 
streets, and between Third Avenue, East River, Sixty-sixth and 
Seventy-fifth streets. This was the property known as Jones's 
Woods, opposite Blackwell's Island, and it took a few years to 
convince the Aldermen that the site was an inappropriate one. 

44 



OF ANDREW H A S W E L L GREEN 

The opposition to the Jones's Woods Park appears to have con- 
centrated in favor of the Central Park site, and it assumed such 
proportions that in January, 1852, the Common Council asked 
the Legislature to take no further action in relation to opening 
the East Side park. The partisans of the latter kept up their 
campaign, however, and in 1853 a steamboat was chartered to 
enable members of the Legislature and the Chamber of Commerce 
and others to examine the proposed location. President Pierce 
was a guest of this party. The general conclusion seems to have 
been that the proposed site was not only not sufficiently central, 
but that one side of it being bounded by a deep stream, and rapid 
current, the facility with which persons or bodies could be pro- 
jected into it might lead to the commission of crime. 

There was accordingly passed by the Common Council, without 
much opposition, on June 9, 1853, a resolution to the following 
effect: 

Whereas . . . certain interested parties are attempting to renew the 
subject without, and independent of, any action of the Common Council 
in favor of the same; and 

Whereas, so far as ascertained, the proposed Central Park has met the 
general approbation of our citizens, and the project being more feasible than 
that of the Jones's Woods Park, on the ground that if carried into effect it 
will embrace within its limits the present and contemplated reservoirs, and 
be central to the island, where, if a park is wanted at all, would be a proper 
location for one; therefore. 

Resolved, That application be made to the Legislature at its present session 
for a law authorizing the opening of a park the boundaries of which shall be 
southerly by Sixty-third Street, northerly by One Hundredth Street, easterly 
by Fifth Avenue, and westerly by Eighth Avenue. 

By way of treating both sides impartially, the Legislature 
passed two laws, one for Central Park, and one for the East Side 
park. The former (Chapter 616) is entitled, "An Act to alter 
the map of the City of New York by laying out thereon a public 
place and to authorize the taking of the same," and provided 
that "all that piece or parcel of land situate lying and being in 
the Twelfth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-second wards of the City 
of New York, bounded southerly by Fifty-ninth Street, northerly 
by One Hundred and Sixth Street, easterly by Fifth Avenue, and 
Westerly by Eighth Avenue, is hereby declared to be a public 

45 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

place in like manner as if the same had been laid out by the 
commissioners" of 1807. The Act authorized the appointment 
of five commissioners of estimate and assessment to conduct the 
acquisition proceedings, and the issue by the city of stock, to be 
called "The Central Park Fund," for the purpose of raising money 
to pay for the land. The Jones's Woods Act was repealed in the 
following year. 

Proceeding under Chapter 616, the Common Council passed a 
resolution on August 12, 1853, authorizing an application to the 
Supreme Court for the appointment of commissioners of esti- 
mate and assessment. These were duly appointed in November, 
1853, and their report was filed on December 14, 1855. On Feb- 
ruary 5, 1856, the court confirmed the report of these commis- 
sioners awarding $5,169,369 for damages, and $1,657,590 for 
benefits. The Common Council immediately appropriated a 
sum of over five millions for the expenditure necessary at that 
time, and on May 12 and 19, 1856, the Council and Board of 
Aldermen respectively enacted an ordinance which provided that 
the Mayor (Fernando Wood) and the Street Commissioner 
(Joseph S. Taylor) should be a Board of Commissioners for the 
management of Central Park until the further action of the Com- 
mon Council or the Legislature. 

Thus, at its very inception, the enterprise was threatened with 
the control of the lowest order of trafficking politicians. The 
occupation of the Mayor's chair by a man like Fernando Wood 
represented nothing less than the utter failure of the mode of 
electing the New York city government by universal Suff"rage. 
Wood's career as Mayor and Member of Congress, taken in con- 
nection with his previous history is one of the most unsavory 
episodes in the political records of New York. The origin of the 
man is sufficiently indicated by this reference to him in Charles 
H. Haswell's diary of December 9, 1836: 

" Fernando Wood left the employ of Mr. Secor, then Fras. 
Secor & Co., and opened a three-cent liquor store at the corner 
of Rector and Washington streets. The Secors, Peter Seeley (a 
stevedore), and some other employers of laborers, were in the 
habit of paying their men off in Wood's store, and in connection 

46 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

with this, it is not amiss to note that the custom of employers on 
the river fronts paying their men in a grocery store was of general 
practice. It was charged against Wood, and never responded to, 
that when a man presented himself to receive his wages he was 
surprised at being told that there was such and such an account 
charged to him for drinks. There was no appeal." 

To the reputation which Wood acquired in the next fourteen 
years we have the testimony of Philip Hone, under date of 
October i6, 1850: 

"The Loco-Focos have nominated Fernando Wood for Mayor. 
There was a time when it was thought of some consequence that 
the incumbent of this office should be at least an honest man. 
Fernando Wood! Let the books of the Mechanic's Bank tell his 
story. There is no amount of degradation too great for the party 
who expects to 'rule the roost,' and probably will. Fernando 
Wood, instead of occupying the Mayor's seat, ought to be on the 
rolls of the State prison. But our blessed universal suffrage will 
raise a flame with this Wood to drive away Whigism, Conserva- 
tism, and good, honest Democracy as we formerly knew it. 
Fernando Wood, Mayor!" 

Wood was first nominated for Mayor in 1850, when the Democ- 
racy was strong, vigorous and united, but he was defeated by the 
Whig candidate, Ambrose C. Kingsland. In 1854 Wood again 
secured the nomination of his party, and, in spite of a bolt of the 
respectable element of it, which resulted in the nomination of 
Wilson G. Hunt, he was elected, or, what practically amounted to 
the same thing, was counted in. In 1856 Wood, who had then 
complete control of the primary machinery of his party, renomi- 
nated himself. This was a Presidential year, and the machine 
elected him. The character of the municipal administration which 
flourished under Fernando Wood was set forth with great frank- 
ness in the newspapers and the pamphlet literature of his time. 
Among the charges brought against him, and never disproved, 
was that of selling official positions to the highest bidder. Among 
other charges, it was specifically alleged in the public prints that 

47 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

in 1857, while Mayor, Wood sold the lucrative position of Street 
Commissioner to Charles Devlin for ^50,000 cash, with certain 
reservations as to the patronage and profits of the office. 

Evidently, the character of the city government of New York 
had sunk to the lowest level it could well reach, and decent men of 
all parties began to ask each other how the vulgar, rapacious and 
unscrupulous despotism wielded by Wood and his following was 
to be kept from perpetuating itself. Up to that time the general 
tendency alike of Royal and State grants to the City of New York 
had been to confirm and enlarge the legislative powers of the 
Board of Aldermen. Under the Montgomerie Charter, the 
Common Council was given "full power, authority, and license to 
frame, constitute, ordain, make and establish, from time to time, 
all such laws, statutes, rights, ordinances, and constitutions which 
to them, or the greater part of them, shall seem to be good, useful 
or necessary for the good rule and government of the body cor- 
porate." In the Common Council (of which the Mayor and 
Recorder were also members) was vested the sole power of estab- 
lishing and regulating ferries, of making and laying out streets, 
highways, water courses and bridges, of appointing markets, 
inspecting, weighing and measuring articles of food and drink, 
erecting prisons and almshouses, and providing for their govern- 
ment, granting licenses for the sale of liquors, and exercising a 
variety of judicial powers as justices of the peace and associate 
justices of the original Court of Common Pleas of the City and 
County of New York. 

The judicial powers of the Mayor and Aldermen were exercised 
for full one hundred years. At the close of that period their 
authority to regulate every detail of local government remained 
wholly unimpaired. In the words of Chancellor Kent, "We need 
only look over the volume of laws and ordinances of the Common 
Council, revised, digested and published in 1834, to be satisfied 
of the weight of the complicated cases and duties which are con- 
fided to the municipal legislature, and which require them to 
regulate such vast and such minute concerns, and to affect such 
a variety of interests and pursuits in this great commercial city." 

But the level of ability and character in the Common Council 
was gradually lowered, and some years before 1857 membership 

48 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

of either of the two boards of which it was composed had become 
an object of civic ambition mainly to petty ward politicians. 
Thus it happened that when the Legislature of that year set 
about abridging the powers of the Aldermen and Councilmen 
there was no disposition to protest, either on the part of the busi- 
ness community or the general body of taxpayers. In the esti- 
mation of most of these, New York was the worst-governed city 
on the continent. Some of them may have recognized the fact 
that it had come to be so by their own neglect, but they were so 
profoundly impressed with their inability to cope with the row- 
dies, jobbers and wire-pullers who controlled elections that they 
welcomed any legislation which might serve to neutralize the 
power of the ignorant and purchasable vote, without demanding 
of them any sustained exercise of vigilance or political activity. 
Hence the creation of semi-independent executive departments 
of the city government, and the transfer to a State Board of the 
police and excise administration of the three counties of New 
York, Kings, and Richmond, were regarded by the municipal re- 
formers of the period as progress in the right direction. Fernando 
Wood, who had been chiefly instrumental in making the intelligent 
part of the New York public despair of the possibility of local 
self-government, did his best to demonstrate the wisdom of the 
policy which had dictated the enactment of the Metropolitan 
Police bill. In the struggle which attended the ousting of 
Mayor Wood's police the sympathies of law-abiding citizens 
were, necessarily, on the side of the new force, and quiet people 
breathed more freely when the rowdy element, which stood for 
civic rights, had at last exhausted their opportunities for rioting. 
It was thus with the entire approval of all who had any stake 
in the peace and prosperity of the City of New York that the 
Legislature passed on April 17, 1857 (Chapter 771), an act for the 
regulation and government of the Central Park. After defining 
the boundaries of the Park, already quoted, the act placed it 
under the exclusive control of eleven persons to be known as 
Commissioners of Central Park. The first Board, as named in 
the act, was constituted as follows: Robert J. Dillon, James E. 
Cooley, Charles H. Russell, John F. Butterworth, John A. C. 
Gray, Waldo Hutchins, Thomas E. Field, Andrew H. Green, 

49 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Charles W. Elliott, William K. Strong, and James Hogg. They 
were to hold their offices for five years and to receive no compen- 
sation for their services, other than a nominal sum for personal 
expenses when engaged in visiting and superintending the Park. 

The task before the commissioners was a sufficiently discourag- 
ing one. As Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall has described it: The 
Croton Reservoir and the Crystal Palace, then occupying the 
sites of the Public Library and Bryant Park between Fortieth 
and Forty-second streets, were on the outermost confines of 
civilization; and Central Park was worse than a wilderness. Its 
future site consisted of an apparently intractable area of about 
776 acres of rocks, swamps, ponds, puddles and rills, so uneven as 
to render the cost of grading alone, as a contemporary report put 
it, "more than twice the present value of the lands." It was so 
thinly covered with soil that it was almost impossible to find a 
square rod in which a crowbar would not strike rock; so low in 
places as to be utterly unfit for building purposes and a menace 
to health on account of its offensive and unwholesome condition. 
It was a sort of "no man's land," preempted by about 5,000 
squatters, disfigured by their shanties and pig-pens and befouled 
by their filth. A huge population of cows, horses, swine, goats, 
dogs, cats, geese, and chickens roamed at large within its bounds. 
The occupations of some of the squatters were illegal nuisances, 
and were carried on under cover of the night. The land was also 
the omnium gatherum for city refuse, and was diversified by heaps 
of cinders, brickbats, potsherds, and other rubbish. As offen- 
sive to the sense of smell as these conditions to the sense of sight, 
were the odors emanating from a number of swill-milk, hog-feed- 
ing, and bone-boiling establishments. Briefly, the whole aspect 
of the region was about as repulsive as could well be imagined. 

Then, the art of landscape gardening had hardly begun here, 
and was, indeed, still undeveloped abroad. The laying out of 
Central Park was an undertaking without precedent in America 
— it might be said in the world — a venture upon untried ground, 
the more hazardous because of the unpromising nature of the 
field, and the discouraging obstacles it presented to any artistic 
treatment. The work, as Mr. Green clearly foresaw, would in- 
volve the organization of a force of architects, engineers, gardeners, 

50 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

skilled and ordinary laborers, on an altogether novel plan, the 
constantly varying features of which would require the exercise 
of inventive skill and executive genius on the part of some one 
mind which should direct and operate the whole. 

A temporary obstacle to the beginning of work was created by 
the financial crisis of 1857, and the consequent difficulty of market- 
ing the bonds, but the most serious difficulty of all was to be found 
in the political conditions of the time. Here was a public work 
destined to involve the expenditure of millions of money, and it 
was inconceivable that the professional politicians and their 
heelers should relinquish without a struggle what they conceived 
to be their share of its patronage and profit. If there was one 
man on the commission, more than another, by whom this danger 
was clearly perceived, and who was determined to meet it at the 
very outset, that man was Andrew H. Green. That a majority 
at least of his associates were fully impressed with the necessity 
of keeping the work free from the influence of political jobbery, 
and equally so, with the designated fitness of Mr. Green to be the 
active instrument in this effort, their opening proceedings abun- 
dantly proved. 

The commission organized on April 30, 1857, by the election 
of Mr. Cooley as president, Mr. Gray as vice-president, and Mr. 
Elliott as secretary. At this meeting Messrs. Green, Russell, 
and Hutchins were appointed a special committee to report as 
to the present conditions at the Central Park, particularly with 
regard to officers, plans, and employees. Mr. Green was also 
one of three appointed to prepare and report necessary bylaws for 
the use and government of the Board. On May 7th, Mr. Green 
presented to the Board the report of the Committee on Bylaws, 
and made at the same time a brief report in relation to the em- 
ployees on the Park and the condition of the Park generally. 
The special meeting of the Board on May 9th placed Mr. Green 
on the standing committees of Finance, Roads and Walks; Sal- 
aries and Officers, Printing, Bylaws and Ordinances. At the meet- 
ing of June 9th Mr. Green was nominated for the office of treas- 
urer, and was declared unanimously elected at the succeeding 
meeting. 

Thus, from the beginning, Mr. Green took a leading part in 

51 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

organizing the business of the Board, and in the general manage- 
ment of the affairs of the Park. Considering the hands into which 
these affairs had at first fallen, the significance of the resolutions 
he offered at the meeting of September ist, need hardly be 
pointed out. They were to the effect that the engineer of the 
Park should be instructed to report to the Board the names, the 
occupation and the compensation of all persons employed at the 
Park, and that no more laborers be employed until further order 
of the Board. These resolutions were adopted, as was also an- 
other, of similar purport, presented by Mr. Green at the meeting 
of September 8th, for a committee to devise and report to the 
Board a thorough and comprehensive system of accounts, to 
insure a correct exhibit of monetary affairs in every department of 
the Park. Before its adoption, this latter resolution was amended 
by substituting for "committee" the word "treasurer," thus 
placing on Mr. Green alone the work of preparing a thorough 
system of accounts. Mr. Green's watchfulness over the expen- 
diture of money was further manifested in the resolution which 
he offered, and which was duly adopted on October 8th, calling 
upon the chief engineer to report to the Board without delay a 
detailed statement of all claims against the Board since its organi- 
zation up to the date of his report, and that the clerk of the com- 
mission report the amount of the liabilities incurred by him. This 
was followed by another resolution, also unanimously adopted, 
declaring "that all persons employed by the Board are forbidden 
to contract any debt or liability upon or on behalf of the Board." 
This vigilance to protect the treasury was accompanied by care- 
ful provison for the regular payment of the Park employees on 
the first of each month, and by the subsequent resolution authoriz- 
ing the treasurer to pay the laborers and others employed at the 
Park every fortnight. 



52 



CHAPTER V 

PARK CONSTRUCTION AND UPTOWN CITY DEVELOPMENT EARLY 

TROUBLES OF THE PARK COMMISSION EXTENSION OF THE 

POWERS OF THE BOARD THE EDUCATIONAL FEATURES 

OF THE PARK SYSTEM 

WHILE he was deeply impressed with the necessity of 
establishing, from the first, strictly business methods 
in the administration of Central Park, Mr. Green had 
probably broader and larger views than any of his colleagues 
of the relation of this great work to the future development 
of the city. We have seen how, as president of the Board 
of Education, he was accustomed to cast a prophetic eye on 
the coming greatness of New York, and his conception of 
the proper equipment of the metropolis of the Western World 
with works of public improvement grew with years of expe- 
rience. For a proper understanding of the requisites for the 
efficient prosecution of such work as Central Park he was 
better equipped than any other member of the Board. That 
fact was not lost upon his associates, and a year after the organi- 
zation of the commission Mr. Green was made its president. As 
the work proceeded it became increasingly evident that its eff"ec- 
tive supervison was fully sufficient for all the time and energy of 
any one man, and on September 15, 1859, the Board created a new 
office — that of Comptroller of the Park — placed Mr. Green in 
it, and left for the next ten years and a half the construction of 
Central Park to be prosecuted under his personal direction. 
I Mr. Green was fortunate in the men selected to do the tech- 
I nical work of the undertaking. On September 11, 1857, Fred- 
I erick Law Olmsted, then a man of thirty-five, and better known, 
! up to that time, as a writer, economist and philanthropist, than 
as a landscape gardener, was appointed superintendent. A 
I month before the Board had voted to offer prizes of ^2,000, $1,000, 

I $750, and $500 respectively for the best four plans in order of 

1 

53 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

merit for laying out the Park. On April 28, 1858, the competitive 
plans were voted on, and, with only one dissenting vote, that of 
Mr. Olmsted and Calvert Vaux — No. 33 — received the first 
premium. Mr. Egbert L. Viele, who had acted for about a year 
as engineer-in-chief, thereupon retired, and Mr. Olmsted be- 
came architect-in-chief, with the very efficient cooperation of 
Mr. Vaux. To Mr. Jacob Wrey Mould must be accorded the 
credit for the beautiful carvings and other decorations on the stone- 
work, for the bridges, and most of the other early architectural 
structures in the Park. 

The first and almost the only serious controversy that arose in 
the Central Park Commission was due to the persistent effort of 
Messrs. Robert J. Dillon and August Belmont to introduce changes 
into the plans of Messrs. Olmsted and Vaux. The character of 
these may be sufficiently indicated by quoting two of them: 

"The Drive. — According to plan 33, the entire drive below Ninety-sixth 
Street, embracing several miles in extent, is flanked on either side by the 
walk, thus assimilating the drive to the roadway of the streets and avenues, 
and destroying the appearance and illusion of a country road. We propose 
that the drive shall be devoted to its object singly and alone, cutting the sward 
on either side, and separate and distinct from the ride and the walk." 

"Cross Roads. — By law, the commissioners are not obliged to run any 
roads across the Park, and they should be made only so far as they are necessary 
to effect transit from one side of the island to the other. There will be little 
or no such business relations of one side with the other as to require vehicles 
of traffic to cross the Park. During the entire length of Broadway, above 
Canal Street, separating a compact population on either side of it, a vehicle 
of traffic is very seldom seen to cross it. If three blocks of land of the Park 
should intervene, all occasions for traffic across the Park will, in our judgment 
very nearly disappear. By plan 33, four transverse roads are designed, 
crossing the Park in a straight line, sunken eight or ten feet below the surface, 
and in some portions tunneled through intervening rocks. We consider 
these roads to be a blemish on the plan, and will, if made, be a blight and 
deformity to the Park, irretrievable and forever to be deplored. They will 
divide the Park into four different sections, and interrupt the drainage, both 
under and superficial, in the ffow of water to the lakes. For the drive they 
must be crossed by four bridges, going up on one side, and four bridges coming 
down on the other, and where bridges are not erected for the drive, fences 
must be erected for the safety of ramblers, who would otherwise fall into 
these sunken roads. The amendments propose to abolish these roads entirely, 
and to substitute in their stead, three cross roads, running from each one 
hundred feet street in a winding way across the Park following the topography, 
so that passage across the Park may be made, but not with such facility in 
grade and level as to invite passage for purposes of trade or traffic." 

54 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

Except as evidence of the limitations of two exceptionally able 
men, the amendments made but little impression on the public 
mind. Their authors, or, rather, Mr. Dillon, returned to the 
attack, however, with a proposal that the work on the Park be 
done by public letting. That also was so demonstrably unwise 
that it received no support from the other members of the Board, 
and hardly needed what the Courier and Enquirer called the 
"Sledge-hammer argument" of the president of the Board to 
administer its coup de grace. Messrs. Dillon and Belmont were 
pleased to think they had been discourteously treated by their 
associates, and from the judgment of the latter they made an 
appeal to the public which was prefaced as follows: "The man- 
ner in which these amendments were received and disposed of 
will appear by the annexed protest, which, having been rejected 
by the Board, we now publish for the information of the people, 
whose servants we are. They own the Park, and are most in- 
terested in its success. If we are wrong, thought and discussion 
will prove it; if we are right, the people may possibly find some 
means of averting the execution of a plan which they disapprove." 
The comment of the Evening Post on this proceeding may be 
taken as fairly representative of the intelligent public sentiment 
of New York: 

In conclusion, we do not feci that we should discharge our whole duty as 
conductors of a public press if we forebore to do what we could to arrest the 
effort which is making to disorganize this commission and throw it into the 
dirty pool of party politics. We are satisfied that the commissioners acted 
wisely in adopting the plan which they did adopt, and to which there was 
but one dissenting vote. We are satisfied that they acted wisely in the removal 
of Mr. Viele, to which there was no dissenting vote. We incline to think they 
acted liberally in reserving the amendments of Messrs. Dillon and Belmont 
for future consideration, instead of rejecting them all, or such of them at 
least as conflicted with the adopted plan. We are further satisfied that the 
majority of the commission are animated by a sincere devotion to the best 
interests of the Park, and are discharging the trust committed to them with 
a degree of fidelity, zeal and success which cannot be too much admired. We 
believe further that the success of this noble improvement depends upon their 
being sustained. The time chosen for these assaults, a day or two before 
the adjournment of the Common Council, shows a determination on the part 
of Messrs. Dillon and Belmont to defeat the appropriation now pending in 
that body, and to suspend the work for the remainder of the summer. Inde- 
pendent of the detriment which the public would sustain from such a state 
of things, the loss of work which it would involve to some twelve hundred men 

55 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

could not be regarded as anything less than a public calamity, for which Messrs. 
Dillon and Belmont and their abettors will be held accountable. 

In compliance with the expressed wish of the Board, Mr. Green 
in his capacity as president, reviewed the whole subject with that 
rare combination of practical sense and expository and analytical 
ability which distinguishes all his public papers. The force and 
ability with which Mr. Green presented his reasons for approving 
of the conclusions of the majority of the Board attracted general 
attention, and were probably instrumental in permanently dis- 
couraging the carping criticism which, allowed to grow, might 
seriously have hampered the prosecution of about the only public 
work to which the city Is able to point with unmixed pride. But, 
fully impressed as was Mr. Green with the excellence of the Park 
plan which had been adopted by the Board, and ample as was 
his confiennce in the ability of the experts who had charge of its 
details, he found frequent occasion to propose amendments to it, 
and he held steadily to the opinion that the Board should retain 
in its own hands the entire control and supervision of the affairs 
of the park. 

To one conviction he adhered with characteristic tenacity, 
until he finally succeeded in giving It practical effect, and that 
was that in its original plan the Park had not been carried to its 
natural termination. He first broached the subject in a resolution 
offered by him and adopted by the Board on January 26, 1858, to 
the effect that a committee of three should be appointed for the 
purpose of ascertaining the ownership of all the land lying between 
the south side of One Hundred and Sixth Street and the south 
side of One Hundred and Tenth Street, the west side of Fifth 
Avenue and the east side of Eighth Avenue, and the price at 
which it could be purchased. The committee was to have power 
to prepare a memorial to the State Legislature relative to the 
expediency of including this land within the limits of Central 
Park. In a report which he prepared for the Common Council, 
dated August 24, 1858, In which was outlined the progress of the 
work up to that date, Mr. Green stated his reasons for this pro- 
posed enlargement. He pointed out that on the north of One 
Hundred and Sixth Street and between that street and One 
Hundred and Tenth Street and Fifth and Eighth avenues is a 

56 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

group of rocks which abruptly terminate at the flats of what were 
known as Harlem Commons. He insisted that at the foot of 
these rocks, lofty, picturesque, and admirably adapted for park 
scenery, was the natural boundary of the Park. From them, the 
Harlem Commons stretched away to the east and north, indicat- 
ing the ultimate grade of that portion of the island. As the land 
rises from One Hundred and Sixth toward One Hundred and 
Tenth Street a line of buildings on the north side of the latter 
would naturally interfere with the view which is here extensive, 
varied, and in all respects worthy of preservation. Moreover, 
in regulating the cross streets, which it was proposed to take in, 
an excavation of rock, in some places forty feet high, would be 
required at an expense greater, in many cases, than the value of 
the lots. Should these streets be regulated under existing laws 
a large portion of the expense must be borne by the city. But 
the main reason for recommending an outlay for this plot of ground 
was its picturesqueness, and the fact that it would extend the 
Park to its obvious natural termination, besides bringing with it 
military reminiscences of the War of 1812 and of the Revolution 
that should be perpetuated. In Mr. Green's judgment, the 
480 lots which he proposed to add to the Park were of compara- 
tively small value, and he held that it would always be an occa- 
sion of regret if they were not secured to the city while it could be 
done without great outlay. 

In estimating the value of this land, Mr. Green forgot, however, 
that the construction of Central Park had already added enor- 
mously, in the minds of its owners at least, to the value of sur- 
rounding property, and events proved that they were able to 
compel the city to pay roundly for its purchase. From first to 
last Mr. Green carried the Board with him in this matter, and in 
compliance with the suggestion which had been formally made to 
it the Common Council adopted resolutions approving of an 
application for the necessary legislation. These, however, were 
vetoed by Mayor Tiemann, and the Board was compelled to 
appeal to the Legislature on its own initiative. Early in 1859 
Mr. Green was authorized to have a memorial prepared and pre- 
sented to the Legislature for a law to authorize the enlargement of 
Central Park from One Hundred and Sixth to One Hundred and 

57 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Tenth Street, between Fifth and Eighth avenues. A bill was 
passed on April 2, 1859, enabling the Board to acquire title to the 
lands. As commissioners of estimate and assessment, Judge 
Gierke appointed Hawley D. Clapp, Anthony J. Bleecker, and 
Richard Kelly, who appraised the four blocks at $1,499,429.50. 
The size of the awards naturally astounded the Park commis- 
sioners who, remembering that the original forty-seven blocks 
had cost only $5,111,426.30, concluded that the four additional 
blocks should not cost more than $435,000. Here was an in- 
crease in value at the rate of more than 300 per cent, and the 
Board naturally thought the awards excessive, while they were 
also compelled to stamp the amount of expenses charged by the 
commissioners of appraisal as grossly exorbitant. The Board 
accordingly voted on December 26, i860, to discontinue the pro- 
ceedings to acquire the lands. In June of the following year the 
Board authorized a renewal of the proceedings, whereupon Judge 
Ingraham appointed Samuel B. Ruggles, Luther Bradish, and 
Michael Ulshoeffer commissioners of estimate. The report of 
these gentlemen made awards to the considerably reduced amount 
of $1,279,590 of which $1,108,505 was chargeable on the city, 
and $171,085 on private owners. 

An improvement attended by fewer difficulties was proposed 
by Mr. Green in his communication to the Common Council of 
August 24, 1858, that, namely, of making Seventh Avenue 150 
feet wide, properly paved, with broad sidewalks, to be reserved 
for a driveway and promenade from, and, in connection with 
Central Park, to the Harlem River. As Mr. Green pointed out, 
railroads had taken possession of Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, 
Eighth, and Tenth avenues and had a grant for Ninth Avenue. 
He, therefore, deemed it necessary to reserve and prepare Seventh 
Avenue for driving, riding, and promenading, uninterrupted by any 
railroad. He regarded this avenue as the backbone of the upper 
part of the city, the natural outlet of the Park, northward, and, 
in a measure, a necessary part of the Park system. 

No better illustration could be given of Mr. Green's devotion 
to the ideal of the "City Beautiful," or of the intelligent foresight 
which he brought to the consideration of works of public improve- 
ments, than his discussion of the reasons for this Seventh Avenue 

58 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

extension. In his communication to the Common Council of 
August 24, 1858, he points out that though not strictly within 
the scope of their jurisdiction, the commissioners of the Central 
Park deem the subject of agreeable and convenient access to the 
Park one that naturally claims their attention. In their studies 
of the Central Park and the avenues by which it was to be ap- 
proached an agreeable access to the Park and to the upper end 
of the Island by a road not paved with cobbles, nor occupied by 
a railroad, appeared to the commissioners to be an universally 
recognized want of the people of the city. The great distance to 
be traveled over pavements, before reaching a smooth, pleasant 
ride or drive, was one of the chief obstacles to a more general 
custom of riding and driving. He felt sure that the Common 
Council would concur with him in the belief that no city of the 
magnitude and extent of New York should be without the very 
highest facilities for a spacious, agreeable, and easily accessible 
ride and drive. He went on to show that Seventh Avenue af- 
forded a most favorable opportunity to supply this great want. 
Broadway was already paved with the Russ and Belgian pave- 
ment to Union Square; by continuing the Belgian pavement on 
Broadway to its junction with Seventh Avenue at Forty-fourth 
Street, and macadamizing, or similarly paving this avenue from 
thence to the Park, an agreeable and direct access would be pro- 
vided to the city's pleasure ground, without any expense that 
would not be worth all its cost. He held that the avenue should 
be planted, from its intersection with Broadway, with shade 
trees on either side, up to the grand entrance gate of the Park on 
Fifty-ninth Street. He then went on to explain in minute detail 
his plan for widening Seventh Avenue from the north end of the 
Park and arranging its width as follows: Sidewalks, twenty-two 
feet each; two carriage ways of thirty-eight feet each, and a horse- 
back ride of thirty feet. Between the sidewalk and the carriage 
way on each side of the curbstone line, and between the carriage 
roads and the horseback ride, should be planted rows of trees 
ultimately to overshadow the whole avenue. He advised that 
the carriage ways should be constructed of gravel mixed with soft 
slate, placed upon a bed of stone, and the horseback ride of a still 
softer material. 

59 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

By this arrangement, It seemed to Mr. Green, studying the 
subject fifty-five years ago, that those who ride and drive would 
be provided with a smoothly paved road from the Battery through 
Broadway and Seventh Avenue to the Park, up to which point 
it was not proposed to divide Seventh Avenue, nor otherwise 
change it than by rows of trees and by making it a road of gravel 
or of Belgian pavement, instead of cobbles. Entering the Park 
at the southerly gate, the rider or driver would follow the course 
of its winding roads to the north gate, leaving the Park, and 
again taking a stately and shaded avenue, with a separate walk 
on each side, with two drives, one for those going forth and one 
for those returning, and a horseback ride between. They would 
thus proceed nearly two miles to the Harlem River, to the free 
bridge at McComb's Dam, then constructing, over which the 
varied country roads of Westchester and the roads to King's 
Bridge would be readily accessible. 

If even Mr. Green failed to take due account of the future 
congestion of downtown street traffic, he was easily ahead of his 
contemporaries in perceiving the immediate consequences of the 
rate at which the city was then growing. He insisted that the 
extent to which the roads and walks of the Park would be fre- 
quented had not yet been appreciated. The city was already 
crowding upon its borders. "But a year or two ago, the beauti- 
ful edifice of the Dutch Reformed Church was constructed far 
uptown, on the corner of Twenty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. 
The Broadway Tabernacle is nearly completed on the corner of 
Thirty-fourth Street. The Brick Church (Doctor Spring's), on the 
corner of Thirty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue, within twenty- 
two blocks of the Central Park, lifts its spire, conspicuous for 
miles. Preparations are already making for the erection of St. 
Patrick's Cathedral, a structure of magnificent proportions, on 
a most commanding site within seven blocks of the Park. The 
Orphan Asylum, the Hospital of St. Luke, Columbia College, 
all in the immediate neighborhood of the Park, indicate how very 
near it is to the constructed portion of the city, and the necessity 
of providing for the population that must soon surround them," 

Mayor Tiemann's veto of the resolutions which the Common 
Council adopted at the suggestion of the Park Board, speaking 

60 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

through its president, helped to bring into sharp rehef the very 
Hmited power possessed by the Board for the prosecution of the 
work with which it was charged. A memorial, dated January, 
1859, was accordingly prepared by the president, and approved 
by the Board, for submission to the Legislature, asking for certain 
amendments to the act of April 17, 1857. After stating what the 
commission had accomplished in the construction of Central 
Park, and the impediments that had hampered their work, the 
memorial went on to show what additional legislation was needed. 
Mr. Green's words were: "Your memorialists find that the act for 
the improvement of the Park not only omits provision for necessities 
which must arise as the Park approaches completion, but that 
some of its subordinate provisions are cumbrous and unnecessary." 
Among the amendments desired was one providing that the 
Board of Commissioners of the Central Park should have the 
power of a corporate body, so far as to give to the Board and its 
successors the power to take and hold such property as may be 
conveyed to it for the purposes of the Park. It was pointed out 
as not improbable, if the management of the Park should con- 
tinue such as to entitle it to confidence, that donations would be 
made for the formation and maintenance of zoological gardens, of 
cabinets of natural history, botanic gardens, observatories, 
monuments, and other ornamental structures. These dona- 
tions should remain with the Commissioners of the Central Park 
and their successors, as a corporate body. The necessity was 
also insisted on of a police force sufficient, competent, and under 
the exclusive control of the Board, since as the act then stood 
the commissioners had no power to appoint the police essential 
to the preservation of order in the Park. In a communication 
to the Common Council of the early part of 1859 Mr. Green 
makes a significant remark bearing on this latter request: "The 
desire for a healthful recreation and exercise, and the taste 
for the natural beauties of the Park, whether in its similitude to 
the garden, the forest or the field, develop and increase with the 
opportunity for their gratification. The Board at this early 
period, amid the bustle and business of framing the structure, 
clearly perceives that the high expectation of its beauty, as well 
as of its beneficent influence, must be disappointed unless order 

61 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

and propriety are maintained supreme over every foot of its 
surface, and within all its departments." 

From first to last Mr. Green was particularly insistent on 
making the Park subserve the purposes of public education, but 
he was fully conscious that there were salutary limitations on the 
competency of the Board to conduct or maintain institutions de- 
voted to that end. It was at his instance that the Board adopted, 
on January 6, 1859, the following resolutions: "That this Board 
regards with interest the project of establishing an observatory 
in the City of New York, which should be commensurate with 
the magnitude of its commercial interests and the complement 
of its other enterprises and facilities for the advancement of 
science. That the Board is favorably inclined to the proposition 
to establish such an observatory upon the Central Park, provided 
that such a site can be selected and a plan of building proposed 
that shall harmonize entirely with the primary purposes to which 
the Park is devoted." In the third annual report of the Central 
Park Commissioners, issued a year later, there is noted the eager- 
ness that existed in the public mind for the establishment within 
the Central Park of institutions calculated to afford the means of 
popular cultivation and innocent recreation. Observatories, 
museums of natural history, zoological and botanical gardens, 
and galleries of art, found offers of substantial aid and for their 
foundation. But the Board doubted the propriety of appro- 
priating the moneys placed at its disposal, for these or any 
kindred purposes. As Mr. Green puts the case: "Its duty is 
confined to the construction, maintenance, and regulation of the 
Park; and, while institutions of this kind are desirable, and would 
be fitly placed in the Park, the Board deems it proper that the 
means for their establishment, maintenance and arrangement, 
should be derived from other sources." He intimated, however, 
that the Board would probably be authorized to provide a suit- 
able structure within which donations of works of art might be 
deposited and protected, though it would not long be tolerated 
that the Board should expend the public moneys in the pur- 
chase of such works. 

In November, 1861, on Mr. Green's motion, the Board ap- 
proved of the erection of a conservatory for public use and enjoyment 

62 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

on Fifth Avenue and Seventy-fourth Street, similar in plan to that 
proposed by Messrs. Parsons & Co., and the comptroller of the 
Park was authorized to draft an agreement with them for the 
construction, supplying and management of such conservatory 
under the rules and regulations to be prescribed by the Board, 
and at the expense of Parsons & Co., who were to pay such price 
for its use as the Board should approve. In the report of 
the Board for the year ending December 31, 1861, Mr. 
Green returns to the question of combining the education of the 
people with their amusement and recreation. He remarks that 
the scientific and literary advantages, the great public works, the 
conveniences of living, and the opportunities for the cultivation 
and gratification of the tastes that are found in the libraries, 
museums, and galleries of art, botanical and zoological gardens, 
and the magnificent buildings of the populous centres of Europe, 
are a constant source of interest and attraction to strangers, and 
at the same time afi"ord a continual revenue to the people. He 
adds that the attractions of New York, of a similar character, 
had never been relatively equal to its position among the most 
populous cities of the world. The Board desired to encourage, 
under proper organizations, the establishment within the Park 
of collections of art and of science, of botanical and zoological 
gardens, that combine instruction with amusement. But in 
giving encouragement to any such institution not only must its 
object be approved, but its sound organization and undoubted 
ability to command the means necessary to accomplish its pur- 
poses, according to a high standard of excellence, must first be 
demonstrated. 

From the first, too, Mr. Green kept constantly in view the 
fitness of the Park to contribute to the interests, pleasure, and 
instruction of children. In a report on that subject he said that 
while the Park was intended to afford ample opportunity for 
personal relaxation and repose to all the hard-working and ener- 
getic representatives of labor, it had another class of individ- 
uals to provide for whose contributions to the prosperity of the 
metropolis were no less valuable, and whose claims to a loving 
welcome were equally deserving of illustration in the nomen- 
clature of the entrance gates. To quote his own words: "It 

63 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



aims to provide within the city limits an extensive rural play- 
ground, and a country experience generally, for the whole do- 
mestic circle, so that in future, 'The Boys,' 'The Girls,' 'The 
Women,' and 'The Children' may all have an opportunity to 
escape at intervals from the close confinement of the city streets 
and to spend pure and happy hours in direct communication with 
the beauties of nature." The Park was already, by that time — 
the end of 1861 — freely used, and enjoyed heartily by troops of 
young children, and as Mr. Green put the case, the Children's 
Gate would help to keep in mind the fact that, in the course of the 
next twenty years, the whole army of industrious workers who are 
vigorously laboring for the general welfare, would have received 
large reinforcements from the band of little ones, to-day so tender 
and helpless. The Boys' Gate and Girls' Gate would convey the 
idea that ample opportunity for physical development was con- 
sidered a necessary part of the free educational system of the city, 
and would recognize the fact that it was not thought sufficient 
for the young students of either sex to be liberally supplied with 
schools, school teachers and school books, but that they must also 
be induced to study freely the works of nature. 

Experience and observation taught Mr. Green, in later years, 
to modify considerably his views with respect to the combining 
of educational purposes with the development of Central Park. 
He came to feel that the only complete protection of the Park was 
to keep it absolutely free from the intrusion of any enterprise, 
however beneficent its general character, which did not form part 
of and harmoniously fit in with the original scheme of the devo- 
tion of this great area to strictly park purposes. There were 
schemes publicly advocated by good people during the last twenty 
years of Mr. Green's life, which aimed at the use of Central Park 
for objects entirely praiseworthy, but which he found it necessary 
steadfastly to resist on the ground that they detracted from the 
Park's essential character. It was his firm opposition to such 
plans, simply because of their unsuitability to the place, that 
enabled him to exert the greater influence when such projects as 
the use of a portion of the Park for a speedway came to the front, 
and when other still more questionable projects invited public 
attention and received a certain amount of public support. 

64 



CHAPTER VI 

PARK CONSTRUCTION IN WAR-TIME — ENFORCEMENT OF THE MERIT 
SYSTEM AND EXCLUSION OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE — MR. 
GREEN AS COMPTROLLER OF THE PARK— A COMPRE- 
HENSIVE SCHEME OF CITY DEVELOPMENT — A 
PROTEST AGAINST PRIVATE APPROPRI- 
ATION OF PUBLIC THOROUGHFARES 

THE Stress of war-time did not in the least diminish Mr. 
Green's robust faith in the future of New York. On 
April 24, 1 861, twelve days after the firing on Sumter, 
the Board of Supervisors of the County passed a resolution re- 
questing the Commissioners of Central Park and other commis- 
sioners drawing money from the county treasury to suspend work, 
"in view of the present unsettled state of the country and the 
increased expenses of the county." Comptroller Green replied 
on May 21st, on behalf of the park Commissioners, respectfully 
suggesting that the discontinuance of the work on Central Park 
at that time, when employment was with difficulty obtained, 
would be peculiarly onerous, throwing out of employment more 
than a thousand mechanics and laboring men upon whom whole 
families were dependent for subsistence. He went on to show 
that to discontinue the work would not only be unwise and 
impolitic, with reference to the existing condition of affairs, but 
it would be expensive and uneconomical. Many structures in the 
Park were unfinished, and would sustain damage if not pro- 
tected and completed, and engagements for carrying on por- 
tions of the work had been already entered into, which could not 
be abandoned. Mr. Green added that while he and his associates 
believed that a sound public sentiment coincided with the views 
as to the propriety of limiting public expenditure, yet they did 
not deem the time appropriate for public bodies to manifest a 
greater degree of timorousness and apprehension than had been 
shown by business men in their affairs, nor did they believe that 

65 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

they would be justified in a suspension of their work. Early in 
the year the policy of the commissioners was made plain by their 
call upon the Common Council for authority to issue stock to an 
amount much less than that which they were authorized by law to 
expend. They had not yet seen any sufficient reason to change 
this policy, nor had they any doubt that the Board of Supervisors 
on being informed of the considerations which had prompted its 
adoption would concur with the view which the commissioners 
had felt it to be their duty to express "to the end that constant in- 
quiry and uncertainty on the part of mechanics, laborers and others 
engaged at the Park may be promptly answered and put to rest." 

In response to this communication the Board of Supervisors, 
on July 9th, rescinded the preamble and resolution adopted April 
24th, after making the following declaration: "Whereas, a large 
number of workingmen of this city are now without employment, 
and it is important that as many of them be given work as pos- 
sible, while the present stagnation of business lasts, therefore," 
etc. Mr. Green returned to the subject of the effect of the war 
on the city, in his report to the Common Council for the year 
ending December 31, 1861, in which he argued with a copious 
citation of figures and comparisons from the history of Euro- 
pean cities that war did not necessarily check municipal growth. 
"In modern times, though war and pestilence temporarily retard 
the growth of cities, they seem, if possessed of the natural ele- 
ments of growth, to advance steadily in the face of these adver- 
sities." Then, with a glance at the possibilities of New York, 
he applied his text by insisting that "those great works that ren- 
der it the convenient abode of masses of men and attract to its 
shores the industry and capital that determine its metropolitan 
character, should, in anticipation of its brilliant future, not only 
not be abandoned, but should be steadily prosecuted." Among 
those works he enumerated libraries, museums, galleries of art, 
botanical and zoological gardens, parks, clean streets, and pure 
water. 

Mr. Green claimed that the advantages to be supplied by 
Central Park would bring, in the direct enhancement of the value 
of property, a tenfold remuneration for all the outlay of its con- 
struction. In this connection Dr. Edward Hagaman Hall pre- 

66 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

sents the following figures covering a period of forty years after 
the date on which the above quoted claim was made: The 
awards for the whole of Central Park, from Fifty-ninth Street to 
One Hundred and Tenth Street, aggregated $6,291,016.30. 
According to the Park Commissioners' report for 1903, the cost 
of construction and maintenance up to that date was approxi- 
mately $20,000,000. The then estimated value of the land was 
$200,000,000. The taxable valuation of real estate in the Twelfth, 
Nineteenth and Twenty-second wards, within which the Park 
is situated, was, in 1856, $21,875,230. In 1901 the valuation for 
the Nineteenth, Twenty-second and part of the Twelfth wards 
was $946,021,221. 

Long before civil service reform became a subject of popular 
agitation Mr. Green had reduced its principles to practical appli- 
cation. He was a firm believer in a civil service absolutely 
divorced from political influence and based solely upon individual 
merit. "The Commissioners of the Park," he declared in 1861, 
"still adhere to their purpose of excluding the exercise of any 
political influences over persons in their employ, of maintaining 
system, order and economy in every department, and of preserv- 
ing the domain of the Park free from any influences to which 
exception could be justly taken by those who value purity in 
morals and manners and who appreciate the beautiful in art and 
nature." The Park employees were retained in office, promoted, 
and compensated according to merit; a classification of the police 
and other force was maintained, and promotions made from one 
grade to another; gardeners were engaged and promoted with 
reference to their fitness, which was ascertained by an examina- 
tion as to their botanical knowledge and practical skill, and other 
employees were dealt with upon the same general basis. For the 
protection of the employees he had printed placards of which the 
following are the heading and first paragraph: 

CENTRAL PARK 

This Notice is to be Posted on 
the Outside of Every Park Tool 
Box, and is to be Read Aloud at 
Roll call to Each Gang, Once 
a Fortnight, by the Foreman. 

67 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



NOTICE TO MEN EMPLOYED 

Men are employed by the Commissioners of the Park to work for their 
regular wages and for no other consideration whatever. The labor of each 
man employed, his compliance with the rules of the work, and civil behavior 
are all that will be required of him. 

Andrew H. Green, 
Comptroller of the Park. 

Nothing could well have been more distasteful to the men who 
then controlled the city politics of New York than a standard of 
public adminstration like the foregoing. In fact, the greatness of 
the work performed by Air. Green and his associate commissioners 
cannot be fully appreciated without remembering that as the 
city was sinking every year deeper into the slough of political cor- 
ruption, the administration of the affairs of Central Park was 
being conducted on the highest level of business efficiency and 
official honesty. It must not be supposed that this standard was 
maintained without a constant struggle. There are but few hints 
of that to be found in the minutes of the Board, but the news- 
papers of the day contain frequent intimations of how constant 
was the effort of the professional politicians to get hold of the 
patronage and pelf which was held beyond their reach by the 
Commissioners of Central Park. In the New York Times of 
December 30, 1862, reference is made to what was termed the pre- 
cious scheme which was brewing "among the hungry, drunken, 
dishonest leaders of the Slave Democrats of this city." The 
particular scheme meditated was to get hold of the Central 
Park. As the Times pointed out, the entire conception of this 
work was at an immeasurable distance above the sensations, 
thoughts, and expressed wants of the class who were trying to 
seize it — "the men who oppose all street cleaning, fresh air, 
sobriety, courtesy, decency — who love dirt and impurity — seek- 
ing to assume the control of the very local centre of rural beauty, 
health, aesthetics, and the moral incentives which such qualities 
afford to a large city!" 

The Times went on to say that if Fernando Wood was to be 
the standard of truth and honor — this would be parallel to 
admitting "this feculent mass of politicians and rabblement to 
the control of the nobility, grandeur, and multiform excellencies 

68 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

of the Central Park." Keeping In view the entire history of its 
completion and development, the work on the Park had only 
begun. Seven hundred acres, largely of rock land, had to be put 
in perfect and varied order for all the necessary purposes of a 
great park of a greaty city. "Regard," said the newspaper, 
"the taste, the talent, the energy, the honesty, and the expendi- 
ture required for this. Ordinary works are trifles in comparison. 
A year or two completes them. But here is a thing for a genera- 
tion's labor. It will be years and years before the laying out is 
thoroughly made; and then the responsibility and expense of 
guardianship will be correlatively enormous." It was not con- 
tended that under its present management the Central Park was 
not well cared for. It was not assumed that politics entered into 
the choice of day-laborers. It was not asserted that the most 
was not procured for the money. All that was conceded. A 
great work, "the greatest in the country, the capitol not ex- 
cepted," was completely handled by the masters at the head of it. 
Therefore — and therefore only should they be thrust out. " In 
place of men in whom all have confidence, it is sought to place 
men in whom nobody has confidence — not even themselves one 
of the other — men whose integrity is that of the ex-Mayor, who 
on being called honest, all the crowd at Mozart Hall the other 
night broke out into a horse laugh." 

Meanwhile, Mr. Green was laying the first courses of that great 
structure of educational influence for which Central Park sup- 
plied the foundation and without which the Park would have been 
shorn of half its usefulness. From 1859 onward Mr. Green had 
never ceased to insist on the necessity of incorporating in the 
scheme of the Park zoological and botanical gardens. By 1863 
it had become obvious that something must be done to make ade- 
quate provision for the specimens which were accumulating on the 
hands of the custodians of the Park. Mr. Green pointed out in 
his report for 1862 that persons interested in the Park in this 
and other countries had tendered to the Board valuable speci- 
mens of animals to be added to its zoological collection. These 
were generally accepted and cared for in temporary structures, 
but it had become necessary to determine whether the charge of 
forming a zoological collection worthy of the city, and of main- 

69 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

taining it satisfactorily, was to be undertaken by the Board or 
by other agencies. The deer in the Park, the foxes, the peacocks, 
the cranes, pelicans, gazelles, eagles, storks, and swans were 
already sources of constant interest and pleasure to very large 
numbers of visitors. In forming a permanent collection there 
was, of course, the question of expense to be determined, and 
whether access to it should be free or subject to a small admis- 
sion fee. On one point Mr. Green was quite clear and that was 
that the zoological and botanical gardens should be made ancil- 
lary to and valuable auxiliaries of that great free public educa- 
tional system which he called already the pride of the city, and 
should also be the source of useful practical information to agri- 
culturists, merchants, and manufacturers throughout the land. 

How far Mr. Green was ahead of his time is exemplified by his 
references in the report of the commission for 1862 to scientific 
agriculture and the waste of American woodlands. He pointed 
out that agriculture in some form was the chief occupation of our 
people; and that the products of the field and the forest formed 
the great volume of our exports, and were the basis of home com- 
merce and industry. Whatever increased their value or ren- 
dered them more easily produced, preserved and formed into 
useful fabrics, he declared to be worthy of the encouragement of 
our citizens and of our city that derives such immense advantages 
from transportation and exchange of products. Then, "the 
forests of the country, with their magnificent beauties, the 
growth of centuries, are being swept away rapidly and wastefuHy, 
and the beasts and the birds that live in their shelter are becom- 
ing extinct for want of an intelligent appreciation of their value 
both to the present and coming generations." 

Mr. Green went on to show that agricultural societies formed 
in rural districts, and farmers' clubs, where practical men can 
relate their experience, had been made instrumentalities of great 
usefulness. But these did not supply the need which is gener- 
ally felt in this country for a central establishment, where infor- 
mation of a reliable character, the result of painstaking scientific 
experiments, could be obtained and reduced to a form adapted 
to general use. Such an establishment ought to find its location 
at some convenient centre of commerce and travel — that is, it 

70 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

should be placed where it will be convenient to visitors and in a 
great city. The influence of a central establishment of this 
character would be felt over the whole country, and it would be- 
come the parent of a large number of lesser ones in different locali- 
ties. Evidently, had Mr. Green had his way, the establishment 
of the Department of Agriculture at Washington would have 
been anticipated by the City of New York. If the larger scheme 
failed of development, he had at least the satisfaction of seeing 
the Botanical Garden and Arboretum grow up under his immedi- 
ate supervision. In the report already quoted from he referred 
to the fact that in a former report the commissioners had dis- 
cussed the mode of conducting such gardens, and had expressed 
the opinion that private organizations, provided with sufficient 
means, would best do the work. While, as a rule, the commis- 
sioners adhered to this opinion, the approval which they had thus 
far met with in their efforts encouraged them to hope that such 
steadiness and continuity in the management of the Park might be 
secured as to render it practicable to conduct these educational 
adjuncts satisfactorily. 

From the time that Mr. Green accepted the office of Comp- 
troller of the Park he devoted all his time and energies to the work 
and practically retired from all other business. Though this 
required no little sacrifice, the field which he had made his own 
was an entirely congenial one. Here he found opportunity for 
the development of those artistic tastes which had for so many 
years been necessarily subordinated to the practical requirements 
of business. The executive ability which he possessed in large 
measure had never until now found an adequate field. It was 
hardly singular, therefore, that under Mr. Green's direction the 
Park Commission rapidly commended itself to public favor and 
confidence. It was early perceived that a work undertaken 
mainly for the benefit of the next generation was to contribute 
greatly to the enjoyment of the one which witnessed its progress. 
Very early, too, the growth of the Park began to stimulate the 
development of the adjacent territory, and the Board was charged 
by the Legislature with various functions beyond those originally 
contemplated. Powers were conferred upon it to lay out the 
north end of the island; to survey and lay out the lower part of 

71 



T HE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Westchester County; to devise plans for the Improvement of the 
Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and for the construc- 
tion of bridges over these streams; to establish and define the bulk- 
head lines on the North River, north of Fifty-fifth Street; and to 
survey and lay out that part of the island lying west of Eighth 
Avenue and south of One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street. On 
all these subjects Mr. Green made exhaustive reports to the 
Board, prepared with great care, after personal examination of 
the various districts involved. These reports became the stand- 
ard authority on the whole subject, and were made the basis of 
all future operations by the Park Board, and its successors, the 
Department of Public Parks. 

It is quite a prevalent delusion in New York that the city owes 
the entire scheme of the upper West Side improvements to the 
activity of the Tweed regime, and this public service has been 
frequently quoted as an offset against its career of wholesale 
robbery. Nothing could be further from the truth than the credit 
claimed for the Tammany Ring in developing the boulevard 
system of New York. Wherever they touched the plans prepared 
by Mr. Green it was to mar and not to improve on them. How 
these plans were received at the time of their publication may be 
inferred from the introduction with which a copious citation 
from Mr. Green's report of May, 1866, is prefaced in the New 
York Herald of the 28th of that month, which reads in part, as 
follows : 

A document has just been published — the report of the Comptroller and 
Treasurer of the Park, Andrew H. Green — which treats of this subject with 
the practical ability and comprehensiveness which would naturally be expected 
from a mind that has had so much to do with developing and directing the 
entire course of the improvements realized and projected in the Park and the 
designs for laying out the upper portion of the city. From its pages we give 
some extracts of great interest. The document is not an essay, or a compilation 
of speculative suggestions. It embodies the practical results of a close examina- 
tion and careful estimate of the real wants of this metropolis in the work of 
completing the city and preparing it for the proper accommodation of the 
vast population which must be disposed of within its borders within fifteen 
or twenty years hence. Mr. Green's report is made to the Park Commissioners 
presenting a careful review of the work to be done under the recent enactments 
of the Legislature transferring the jurisdiction of all the region north and west 
of the Park to that Board. The terms of office of the commissioners, five 
years, were renewed. Their principal duty hitherto — the construction work 

72 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



on the Park — being nearly completed, it was assumed that their admirable 
executive and scientific organization would confer incalculable benefit if ex- 
tended to the laying out of the entire upper part of the city. Of this work 
they have already filed a portion of their map of the great Drive or Boulevard, 
from Fifty-ninth Street to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. This 
will, of course, be continued, as provided in the law, around the island, returning 
to the Park through the Sixth and Seventh avenues. Other improvements 
are alluded to, including the new St. Nicholas Avenue, on the site of Harlem 
Lane. Mr. Green's report is detailed, practical and exhaustive, showing that 
this important work has fortunately fallen into the care of the most thorough 
and efficient control. His full yet terse exhibit of the laying out and principal 
features of all the great cities, both ancient and modern, including the large 
American cities, is full of interest and suggestiveness. 

Mr. Green very early realized the importance of the work of 
connecting the Park with the large improvements contemplated 
at the north end of the island. In the annual report for 1864, 
after referring to the failure of the commissioners for the opening 
and widening of Seventh Avenue to finish their work up to that 
time, Mr. Green alludes to these improvements as being certain, 
if carried into execution "more fully to develop the highly pic- 
turesque features of the island's scenery, give access to the magnifi- 
cent public and private edifices that are located in the more 
rural part of the city, and render this metropolis far in advance of 
any city on either continent in the extent and interest of its 
varied suburban drives." He added that the public works which 
had heretofore been carried out on this island, and in the State 
and nation, had been conceived on too limited and narrow a 
scale. Wealth and population had always outstripped the prog- 
ress of improvement and demonstrated its inadequacy before 
it was completed. 

The scheme of improvement at the upper extremity of the 
island was one involving peculiar problems, and it is hardly pos- 
sible now that the work has been done fully to realize the dif- 
ficulties attending Its conception and execution. The laying out 
of the streets on that part of the island above One Hundred and 
Fifty-fifth Street, and the construction of a drive from that 
street down to the intersection of Fifty-ninth Street with Eighth 
Avenue was a problem to which Mr. Green devoted long and 
serious study. He describes the part of the island in question 
as three and two thirds miles In length and of an average width of 

73 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

about three fourths of a mile. Its greatest width is just south of 
Spuyten Duyvil Creek, being there one mile wide. It comprises 
1,700 acres of land, and is bounded by One Hundred and Fifty- 
fifth Street on the south, by the Hudson River on the west, the 
Harlem River on the east, and by Spuyten Duyvil on the north. 
The length of the shore line washed by tidal waters is about nine 
miles and three quarters. The surface of the territory was exceed- 
ingly varied, irregular and picturesque, including the level of the 
salt marsh and the rolling pasture, while rising at times to a high 
degree of craggy wildness. Much of it was covered with wood 
— the high lands particularly — oaks, chestnuts, walnuts, 
maples, hemlock, cedar, elm and other indigenous trees, forming 
forests and groves of great extent and beauty. There were then 
not far from three hundred and fifty houses on this territory, 
some of them country seats — spacious, elegant and costly. 
About one hundred and twenty of these buildings would stand 
in the streets and avenues if the old, rectangular plan were car- 
ried out. The attractive characteristics of this region had, 
during the preceding century, rendered it a favorite resort of 
much of the wealth and intelligence of the city, and the occupants 
of these beautiful retreats were naturally watching with interest, 
not unmixed with solicitude, the steady approach of improve- 
ments that were pushing toward and would soon surround them. 
The necessity and the economy of providing a well-considered 
plan for the development of the upper part of the island were 
illustrated by the experience of the city downtown. The proc- 
ess of straightening and widening streets in the lower part of the 
city, where property had acquired immense value, had been going 
on for many years, and was still going on at a great cost. Mr. 
Green recalled the fact that more than forty years before Harman 
Street had been widened from forty to ninety feet and called East 
Broadway; thirty years ago Chapel Street, from Franklin to 
Chambers Street, had been widened from forty to ninety feet 
and called West Broadway; twenty-nine years ago Centre Street 
had been widened and cut through to the City Hall Park. He 
foresaw that this process would soon begin in the upper portions 
of the city, and he cited the imperial outlay which had been in- 
curred in improving the city of Paris as another instance of the 

74 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

cost of providing for the growing necessities of modern popula- 
tion after a city had been built. With characteristic foresight 
Mr. Green insisted that it would be a mistake to act in this 
matter of uptown improvements solely with reference to the con- 
venience of people residing on Manhattan Island; due regard 
should be had to convenient access to the city for those residing 
elsewhere and doing business here. New York, preeminently 
commercial, was rapidly becoming a great manufacturing centre; 
population was pressing upon its territory, and with facilities for 
rapid transportation, would very soon wholly occupy it. For 
the want of adequate means of reaching the upper part of the island 
in the same time that points thirty miles farther off could be 
reached, population was compelled to seek the towns in the coun- 
try. Mr. Green pointed out that Tarrytown could, by the cars, 
be reached from Chambers Street in less time than it required by 
the horse-cars to Harlem River bridge, and he insisted that some- 
thing more than the accommodations then furnished by the latter 
should be provided. 

The clear-sighted prescience of Mr. Green was well exemplified 
in his energetic protest against the practical reduction of the 
width of streets and avenues of the city by the intrusion of pri- 
vate structures. The bitter recrimination and tedious litigation 
which have attended the execution of a recent notable public 
improvement in New York might have been saved, had due heed 
been given to the following warning addressed by Mr. Green to 
the Board of Park Commissioners on January ii, 1866: 

"In the Fifth Avenue the court-yards, steps, stoops etc., 
occupy thirty feet, or nearly one third of the whole width of the 
street, so that a public way of one hundred feet in width has been 
reduced to seventy feet for all classes of travel, and if other ob- 
structions, such as lamp-posts, hydrants and trees are taken into 
account, it is reduced to sixty-five feet in width for walks and 
carriageway. Now why is so much land taken from private 
owners at great expense for a public thoroughfare, and then im- 
mediately allowed to be occupied by private structures that ob- 
struct and preclude its being used as a thoroughfare.^ Why 
take and pay for one hundred feet, and immediately proceed to 
donate one third of it to private parties ^ Why not as well origi- 

75 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

nally take but two thirds of the land and forbid the use of any of 
it by private owners? In improving this avenue, there is an 
opportunity to effect a reformation in this most objectionable 
practice that has become well-nigh universal. Assuming that 
the Board has power, might it not with propriety preserve the 
whole width of the avenue for public use? This subject should be 
carefully considered before deciding upon the plan of the avenue, 
as the conclusions of the Board in this case may be a guide for 
its action respecting streets and avenues to be hereafter laid out." 
As a matter of fact, Mr. Green did succeed in applying to upper 
Fifth Avenue, to Eighth Avenue between Fifty-eighth and One 
Hundred and Eleventh streets, and to Fifty-ninth and One 
Hundred and Tenth streets, between Fifth and Eighth avenues, 
the regulations in respect to erections or projections abutting 
on the thoroughfare which he desired. 

In August and September, 1868, Mr. Green went abroad for 
the purpose of studying the park systems and other municipal 
features of European cities, returning with a fund of information 
which was the more valuable because of his well trained capacity 
to sift and apply it. But the time was approaching when the 
political cormorants who were regarding with greedy eyes the 
prosecution of great works of public improvement in which they 
had no share, were to be able to seize control of the Central Park 
Board with all its varied functions. As a proper understanding, 
however, of the change which was already preparing in 1868, 
requires some familiarity with antecedent political conditions, 
it will be necessary to undertake a brief review of the political 
history of New York as it affected successive changes in its 
municipal administration. 



76 



CHAPTER VII 

THE PERSISTENCY OF MISGOVERNMENT IN NEW YORK THE 

NEW ORGANIZATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MUNICIPAL FUNC- 
TIONS THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF THE TWEED RING 

THE TWEED CHARTER OF I87O 

FOR the purposes of this Memoir it is fortunately not neces- 
sary to inquire at what precise point of the history of New 
York, jobbery and fraud became fixed elements in its public 
business. That would be a decidedly difficult task, and it could not 
be simplified by assuming, as some have done, that the degradation 
of the city government began when it ceased to be necessary to 
be a freeholder, freeman, or taxpayer to take part in the choice 
of Mayor and Aldermen. The charter amendments of 1849 
swept away the last remnant of a property qualification for city 
voters, by making the laws of the State regulating elections apply 
to those of Charter offices also. But to assert that the operation 
of this act marked a beginning of flagrant misgovernment in New 
York argues a manifest disregard of the truth of history. Nor 
can it be successfully shown that the deterioration of the munic- 
ipal methods of New York kept pace with the encroachments 
made by the State Legislature on the city's powers of self-govern- 
ment. In form at least. New York had never come so near being 
a self-governing municipality as at the time when it was most 
shamelesly plundered. 

As Charles O'Conor declared, "The chartered City of New 
York had from the beginning an imperial status." The grant 
given in 1686 by Thomas Dongan, Lieutenant-Governor and Vice- 
Admiral of New York, under His Majesty James II, recognized 
the possession by the citizens of this "ancient city" of "sundry 
rights, liberties, privileges, franchises, free-customs, preeminence, 
advantages, jurisdictions, emoluments and immunities, as well 
as by prescription as by charter, letters patent, grants and con- 
firmations," etc., beginning with the high officers of the Nether 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Dutch nation and remaining intact to that time. These were 
confirmed and amplified under the seal of His Majesty George II 
in an instrument known as the Montgomerie Charter — so named 
after the Governor of the State in that year of grace 1730. 
Following the recital of preliminary grants this document makes 
the British Sovereign say, "We of our especial grace, certain 
knowledge and meer motion, have confirmed given and granted 
. . . that our said city of New York be, and from henceforth 
forever shall be and remain a free city of itself." 

When Fernando Wood made his memorable suggestion, during 
the Civil War, that New York City should secede from the State 
and Union and set up an independent sovereignty, he probably 
regarded it as a logical sequence of the royal grant of 1730, and 
there have been conservatives of higher character and purer 
motives than the too notorious Mayor of New York who have 
wished that the lines of the Montgomerie Charter had been less 
widely departed from. Chancellor Kent said in regard to that 
instrument, that it was "entitled to our respect and attachment 
for its venerable age, and the numerous blessings and great com- 
mercial prosperity which have accompanied the due exercise of 
of its power." He added: "It remains to this day (1836) with 
much of its original form and spirit, after having received by 
statute such modifications and such a thorough enlargement in 
its legislative, judicial and executive branches, as were best 
adapted to the genius and wants of the people and to the aston- 
ishing growth and still rapidly increasing wealth and magnitude 
of the city." 

But the Montgomerie Charter, after "assigning, nominating, 
constituting and making " certain persons incumbents of the city 
offices from Mayor to Constable, reserved for all time to the 
Governor and Commander-in-chief of the province, by and with 
the advice of his council, the power to appoint the Mayor, Sheriff, 
and Coroner of the city, conceding only to the freemen of the 
city and the freeholders of each respective ward the power to 
elect Aldermen, assessors, collectors and constables. On the 
Mayor and Aldermen devolved the duty of appointing the Cham- 
berlain and High Constable. The powers over the city govern- 
ment which, before the Revolution, had been exercised by the 

78 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

representatives of the Crown, were vested by the State Consti- 
tution of 1777 in the Governor and his Council of Appointment, 
to be so continued till otherwise directed by the Legislature. 
Under the amended Constitution of 1821 the Mayor was ap- 
pointed annually by the Common Council, the Sheriff and Coroner, 
as well as the Register and the City Clerk being elected triennially. 
Not until 1834 did the Legislature give the electors of the city, 
qualified to vote for Charter officers, power to elect the Mayor. 

But we must go back very far indeed to find a time when po- 
litical partisanship failed to exercise a sinister influence over the 
government of the City of New York. Even in 1786 when the 
city had but 24,000 people, a Republican pamphleteer, making 
a bitter attack on the rule of the Federalists, said: "It is a matter 
of astonishment that a city so enlightened, and which has so 
eminently contributed to the restoration of public liberty, should 
have so long submitted to the abuses of its municipal adminis- 
tration. When we view the men who compose the majority of 
the Common Council; when we consider the slenderness of their 
influence as individuals; when we contemplate the paucity of 
their talents, we are impressed with mingled emotions of surprise 
and indignation that men so destitute of learning should have 
been permitted to become the despoilers of the rights of their 
fellow-citizens. . . . The maladministration of our city 
police was unquestionably of a more general and complicated 
system . . . offices and emoluments were heaped upon the 
needy or avaricious members of the Board, and there is but too 
much reason to believe that they were originally created to re- 
ward the demerits of political infidelity." 

Each succeeding generation echoed a similar complaint. In 
1820, with a population of 124,000 and the suffrage restricted to 
property-owners, New York was misgoverned; in 1850, with a 
population of 500,000 and manhood suffrage in untrammeled 
operation, the city was still misgoverned. We have seen the 
conditions under which the revolutionary legislation of 1857 was 
welcomed as a relief from evils that had grown intolerable. As 
Governor Tilden pointed out, in his first annual message, the 
Legislature was often asked to pass laws for New York City 
under the pressure of a public opinion created by abuses and 

79 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

wrongs of local administration that found no other method of 
redress. "When the injured taxpayer could discover no mode of 
removing a delinquent official, and no way of holding him to 
account in the courts, he assented to an appeal to the legislative 
power at Albany; and an act was passed whereby one function- 
ary was expelled, and by some device the substitute elected was 
put in office. Differing in politics as the city and State did, and 
with all the temptations to individual selfishness and ambition 
to grasp patronage and power, the great municipal trusts soon 
came to be the traffic of the lobbies. It is long since the people 
of the City of New York have elected any Mayor who has had 
the appointment after his election, of the important municipal 
officers." 

One of the most important measures of a year fertile in met- 
ropolitan legislation was the act of 1857 giving New York an 
elective Board of Supervisors. From the date of the first Con- 
stitution of the State, the City and the County of New York had 
been convertible terms. Manhattan Island constituted a civil 
division of the State, separate and apart, over all of which a 
chartered municipal corporation exercised, with more or less 
thoroughness, the functions of government. It ranked as a 
county only to contribute its quota of State taxes, but the duty 
of raising this quota was performed by the Mayor, Recorder, and 
Aldermen. For the purpose of avoiding circumlocution in State 
laws it was found convenient to give these officers, when acting 
as a Board for this purpose, the title of Supervisors. In like 
manner, the City Chamberlain, when charged with the function 
of receiving and paying over its demands to the State, was desig- 
nated as County Treasurer. There was, moreover, this radical 
difference between the nominal Supervisors of New York and 
the real Supervisors of other counties of the State, that the 
former had no power to impose taxes. Where there was actual 
county government, the Supervisors could exercise their discre- 
tion as to the amounts which should be raised for local purposes. 
In New York the so-called Supervisors were empowered merely 
to ascertain and levy such sums of money as the law permitted 
the city and county to extract from its taxpayers for that year. 
The taxing power was reserved to the State Legislature, and a 

80 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

special act had to be passed every year, allowing or disallowing 
the amounts asked for the support of the various departments 
and bureaus of the City Government. The standing title of the 
city tax levy passed by the Legislature was "An act to enable the 
Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of New York 
to raise money by tax." The legislation of 1857 did not dis- 
pense with the necessity of passing this annual enabling act, but 
it gave the new elective Board of Supervisors the status of an 
independent governing body. With the exception of the power 
to impose taxes at discretion. Chapter 590 of the Laws of 1857 
gave the Supervisors of New York authority commensurate with 
that which the Supervisors of other counties possessed under gen- 
eral statutes. By these, Sheriffs, Coroners, etc., were recognized 
as county officers, and there was imposed on Supervisors the 
duty of selecting jurors, canvassing the votes cast at elections, 
as well as other functions relating to the payment of judges and 
the government of jails. Before the elective Board was called 
into existence the practice had grown up in New York of keeping 
what were elsewhere county charges apart from those which were 
strictly municipal, and when that Board got fairly down to work, 
it found a field of considerable extent already prepared for the 
exercise of its powers. This it did, perhaps the more easily, be- 
cause at the very head of the list of Supervisors elected in the fall 
of 1857 appeared the name of William M. Tweed. 

Under the act creating the New Board, the Mayor and Re- 
corder ceased to be Supervisors ex officio^ and it was provided 
that the twelve members elected should be equally distributed 
between the two great political parties. That is to say, only six 
names could be voted for on each ticket, the six having the high- 
est number of votes being selected, and the six having the next 
highest being selected for appointment by the Mayor. This 
scheme was improved on, a year or two later, by having the 
Board classified, so that two members should retire each year, a 
candidate to fill one of the vacant places being voted for on each 
of the party tickets, and being placed in office according to the 
system originally devised for a yearly renewal of the Board. In 
other words, the candidate receiving the highest number of votes 
was declared elected, and the one having the next highest was 

81 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

held to be designated for appointment. The plan was an equally 
neat and effective one for securing an equal division of the spoils 
of the Board between Democrats and Republicans. 

Perhaps Mr. O'Conor puts the case somewhat too strongly 
when he says that during the thirteen years of its existence the 
elective Board of Supervisors was "the rallying point of fraud 
and anarchy." It is quite within the mark, however, to say that 
early in the existence of the Board there was developed within it 
a remarkable aptitude for jobbery. Among the city commis- 
sioners created by the Legislature of 1857 was one for the purpose 
of building a new court-house. This body did not get readily to 
work, partly, it would seem, because, its powers included the plan- 
ning of a post-office and accommodations for United States courts. 
In 1 861 the Supervisors obtained an act of the Legislature author- 
izing them to take the work of the Court-house Commission into 
their own hands. Under this act, the Board applied to the Su- 
preme Court to condemn for the use of the County of New York 
a piece of the City Hall Park. This was to be paid for, as was the 
building to be erected on it, by the issue of county bonds. There 
upon ensued this curious financial operation: The City Comp- 
troller was authorized to sell bonds to liquidate a debt due by the 
County to the City of New York, and was required to pay out of 
the common treasury the annual interest charge on money in 
regard to which New York filled the double relation of debtor 
and creditor. The proceeding was farcical enough, but, whether 
designedly or not, it furnished an admirable fulcrum for the lever 
of fraud. By other legislation, in 1861, the Supervisors acquired 
the power to hire courtrooms, armories and a jail, and with the 
authority to call for the issue of bonds to pay bounties and to 
provide for the families of soldiers engaged in the war, their 
opportunities for jobbery became as tempting as they were 
ample. 

That the financial demoralization of the war period — the 
unheard of scale of national expenditures, the jobbery in contracts, 
the sudden growth of private fortunes, the development of the 
gambling spirit incidental to the changeful aspects of civil con- 
flict and the fluctuation in value of an artificial currency — had 
much to do with promoting the official corruption in New York, 

82 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

there can be no possible question. But what Mr. Tilden called 
" the elective power of the people " had been thoroughly debauched. 
If the protest in favor of local self-government was to be voiced 
anywhere, it might have been expected to come from the ranks 
of the City Democracy. But, ten years after the Legislature of 
1857 had placed the government of the city in the hands of com- 
missions, it was evident that the standard of political respon- 
sibility had not advanced beyond that of the era of Fernando 
Wood. The New York Herald will not be accused of over- 
fastidiousness in such matters, but it was moved, before the city 
election in the fall of 1867, to point out that the Tammany Demo- 
crats having managed through the divisions among their oppo- 
nents to secure all the patronage remaining in the hands of the 
city government, imagined themselves so certain of success as to 
be able to defy popular sentiment in the selection of their candi- 
dates. A close corporation committee, with closed doors, packs 
a city Tammany convention and instructs it to nominate John 
T. Hoffman for Mayor. They throw overboard such citizens 
as Andrew H. Green and others of equal character and responsi- 
bility, "and force upon the electors a tool of their own ring, under 
whose administration the taxation of the city has increased to the 
enormous sum of twenty-four million dollars. They pay no 
heed to the wishes of the large majority of voters who desire to 
reform the city government and believe that under the cry of 
'regularity' they can compel the people of New York to reelect 
a candidate who neither possesses the confidence of the taxpayers 
nor the sympathy of the masses." 

The Herald went on to say that if the choice in the mayoralty 
election was to lie between Fernando Wood and John T. Hoifman, 
the people would care very little what might be the result. " It 
is of little consequence whether Wood makes up his pools for 
hungry Democrats outside of Tammany, or Hoffman continues 
to work for the well-fed inside ring; the result will be the same — • 
taxation rolled up by millions, and the cost of every article of 
food and apparel increased to the poor man in proportion. If the 
people choose to submit patiently to be made the dupes and tools 
of the Ring politicians. It Is a matter of perfect indifference to us 
whether the figurehead in the City Hall, for the next two years, 

83 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

may be a magnificent rascal, with a white mustache, or an oily 
Puritan, with a brown." 

The Ring which had been steadily tightening its grasp since 
Fernando Wood was beaten in i860, was approaching the zenith 
of its power. On the eve of the Presidential campaign of 1868, 
Peter B. Sweeny was County Chamberlain, John T. Hoffman was 
Mayor, Richard B. Connolly was Comptroller, William M. 
Tweed was Supervisor, Deputy Street Commissioner, etc., and 
A. Oakey Hall was District Attorney. To carry out the com- 
prehensive programme on which these men were more or less 
agreed, it was necessary that the Democratic nominee for Gover- 
nor in the fall of 1868 should be one of their tools. Sweeny and 
his associates feared that Horatio Seymour would be a dangerous 
rival of Hoffman in the State Convention. Hoffman had been 
defeated in 1866 by Reuben E. Fenton, and this fact, coupled 
with the flagrant corruption of Tammany officials, would be 
turned to the advantage of Seymour unless he could somehow be 
gotten out of the way. The first step was to secure the holding 
of the National Convention in Tammany Hall. This was accom- 
plished through the agents of Tammany in the National Demo- 
cratic Executive Committee. The next step was to fill the hall 
of the Convention with bruisers and ruffians in the pay of Tam- 
many. This was satisfactorily accomplished, and having nomi- 
nated Seymour for President of the United States, the field was 
clear for Hoffman, who was nominated Governor and elected by 
perhaps the most glaring and barefaced frauds ever perpetrated 
at any election before or since. The attitude of Mr. Green toward 
all this was necessarily one of resolute, steadfast hostility. The 
words In which Mr. Tilden described his position toward the Ring 
are strictly applicable to that of Mr. Green: 

Even before the "Ring" came into organized existence, the antagonism 
between those who afterward became its most leading members, and myself, 
was sharply defined and public. It originated in no motive of a personal 
nature on my part; but in the incompatibility of their and my ideas of public 
duty. I distrusted them. They knew that they could not deceive or seduce 
rhe into any deviation from my principles of action. As early as 1 863, some 
of them became deeply embittered, because, being summoned by Governor 
Seymour to a consultation about the Broadway Railroad Bill, I advised him 
to veto it. ... I had seen the fearful decay of civic morals incident to 

84 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

the fluctuating values of paper money and civil war. I had heard and believed 
that the influence of the Republican Party Organization had been habitually 
sold in the lobbies — sometimes in the guise of counsel fees, and sometimes 
without any affectation of decency. I had left the Assembly and Constitu- 
tional Convention in 1846, when corruption in the legislative bodies of this 
State was totally unknown, and now was convinced that it had become almost 
universal. I desired to save from degradation the great party whose princi- 
ples and traditions were mine by inheritance and conviction; and to make it 
an instrument of a reaction in the community which alone could save free 
government. Holding wearily the end of a rope, because I feared where it 
might go if I dropped it, I kept the State organization in absolute independence. 
I never took a favor of any sort from these men, or from any man I distrusted. 
I had not much power in the Legislature on questions which interested private 
cupidity; but in a State convention, where the best in society and business 
would go, because it was for a day or two, those with whom I acted generally 
had the majority." 

As we have already seen, the Democratic National Convention 
was not controlled by a majority of the friends of Mr. Tilden. It 
needs only a superficial acquaintance with the political history 
of that time to realize the solitariness of this little group who were 
destined a few years later to play so important a part in the history 
of the city, the State and the nation. On the eve of the Charter 
elections of the fall of 1868 there is in the New York World 
of November 26th a very suggestive editorial comment on the 
existing condition of municipal politics. It begins with the state- 
ment that the enormous preponderance of Democratic voters in 
the city deprived the Charter elections of all excitement and un- 
certainty, unless there was some division among Democrats them- 
selves. At that time, none such existed, a division which was 
threatened under the lead of Mr. John Kelly having been arrested 
by his impaired health. Meanwhile, Mr. Frederick A. Conkling 
had been nominated for Mayor by the Republicans, "partly to 
insure an open field to the Tammany nominees, and partly to 
afford to that gentleman some prominence in the eyes of General 
Grant's administration." The World cynically remarked that 
the latter purpose would be accomplished if Mr. Conkling was 
industrious and got out enough Republican voters to make it 
creditable to him to be their representative. Then, it goes on to 
say that, losing the advantage of Mr. Kelly's lead, the outside 
Democratic organizations (excepting Mozart) felt the necessity of 
having as their nominee some one equally popular and holding 

8S 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

the highest place in the public esteem, and therefore they ten- 
dered the candidacy to Andrew H. Green, the Comptroller of the 
Central Park. The World's comment on this proffer illustrates 
very clearly the position which Mr. Green then occupied in a 
community with the dominant forces of whose politics and civic 
administration he had the slenderest possible sympathy. The 
comment is as follows : 

Now, Mr. Green is more to New York than the Baron Haussmann to Paris, 
being in his own person the highest type of a municipal officer, and exhibiting 
in his work the refutation of those who charge upon municipalities an essential 
incapacity for Democratic self-government. For the Central Park, while itself 
the crowning ornament of this metropolis, comprises in itself all the essential 
parts of civic administration — streets, police, finance, etc.; and not merely 
nowhere else in this city, but nowhere else in this or any country have such 
rigid economy, such scrupulous integrity, so fine a taste, and so disciplined an 
organization been devoted to the public service as in the Central Park manage- 
ment, of which Mr. Green has been and is the executive arm. In this career 
Mr. Green, by universal consent, has no compeers and no rivals; but the Park 
is not yet completed, the splendid improvements in the upper part of the 
island which have been intrusted to the charge of the Park Commissioners 
they are but just entering upon, and to this work the Democrats of this city, 
both in Tammany and out of it, and, for that matter, Republicans of every 
hue too, feel that his enlightened and skilful superintendence is essential. 

With the election of John T. Hoffman as Governor of the State, 
Tammany may be said to have reached the zenith of its power, 
and the Tweed Ring, with its stupendous frauds became possible. 
It was this combination which stood behind Fisk and Gould in 
the legalized brigandage by which they acquired control of the 
treasury of the Erie Railroad. It would be a mistake to assume, 
however, that Tweed and his associates had no support from the 
respectable element of the community. The organization of the 
Citizens' Association by some influential and respectable mer- 
chants for the purpose of ferreting out and exposing official cor- 
ruption furnishes one of the most interesting episodes of this 
most eventful period of the municipal history of New York. Mr. 
Peter Cooper was the president of the association and he had 
an apparently efficient lieutenant in Nathaniel Sands, who was 
instant in and out of season in opposing Ring legislation at 
Albany. But even this apparently incorruptible association, 
among whose officers were also Mr. Joseph F. Daly and Mr. 

86 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

John M. Henry, was won over by the installation of Sands, Daly, 
and Henry, with some of their relatives, in municipal offices, 
and by that act the only body of aggressive reformers in exist- 
ence at that time, who were not merely disgruntled Democrats, was 
effectually disarmed. Mr. Tilden records, in the narrative of his 
experience with the authors of the new City Charter, that a sham 
was necessary to the Ring; moral support was necessary to sus- 
tain their imposture. He says that none of the Ring ever came 
near him, but Mr. Nathaniel Sands often called to talk over city 
reform, and he adds: "He sometimes brought my honored and 
esteemed friend, Mr. Peter Cooper. They were convinced that 
the Ring had become conservative — were not ambitious of more 
wealth — were on the side of the taxpayers. There was thought 
to be great peril as to who might come in, in case the Ring should 
be turned out." Mr. Tilden says he told Mr. Sands that he 
would shelter no sham and that while he would cooperate 
with anybody for a good charter, the light and air of heaven 
must be let in upon the stagnant darkness of the city adminis- 
tration. 

It was destined, however, that a deeper darkness should fall 
upon the administration of the City of New York before the light 
and air of heaven were let in. The Democratic party of the State 
was bound by countless pledges to restore local government to 
the voting power of the people of the city. For the first time in 
four and twenty years, the Democrats, in 1870, had the law- 
making power. It is true they had in the Senate a majority of 
but one vote, and in the Assembly of seven votes, so that some- 
thing like perfect agreement among them was necessary to pass a 
bill. There was nothing much further from the plans of the 
New York Ring than to risk their control of the city government 
at each recurring election. What was known as the Tweed 
Charter was, therefore, a thoroughly delusive substitute for the 
promised scheme of local self-government. As Mr. Tilden put 
the case in one of his arguments against the charter in Albany: 
"What I object to in this bill is that you have a Mayor without 
any executive power; you have a Legislature without legislative 
power; you have elections without any power in the people to 
affect the government for the period during which these officers 

87 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

are appointed. It is not a popular government, it is not a respon- 
sible government; it is a government beyond the control and inde- 
pendent of the will of the people." 

The bill was passed, however, after a shameless use of public 
money to purchase votes. The corruptionists were the more des- 
perate and the more disposed not to haggle over the price of a vote 
in the State Senate because they knew that, in the secret recesses 
of the Supervisors, and other similar bureaus, were hid ten 
millions in bills largely fraudulent, and that, in the prospective, 
were eighteen other millions, nearly all fraudulent. It was on 
April 5, 1870, that the Legislature passed an act (Chapter 137) 
"to reorganize the local government of the City of New York." 
This act, to quote the language of Mr. Bigelow, practically placed 
"the power and wealth of the city at the mercy of a man who had 
been a contractor of the city government and had gradually 
risen to be the Coryphaeus of this combination" — the Tweed 
Ring. This charter placed the management of the parks above 
Canal Street in charge of a board of five commissioners, appointed 
by the Mayor. The latter, A. Oakey Hall, did not dare to chal- 
lenge the criticism which would have been evoked by terminating 
Mr. Green's connection with the Park. As Mr. Green's associ- 
ates were Peter B. Sweeny, Henry Hilton, Thomas C. Fields, and 
Robert J. Dillon, it was evident enough that the influence of the 
Ring was bound to be supreme in the new Board. 

Fortunately, the work on Central Park was so far advanced in 
1870 that it could not be undone, into whatever other hands its 
conduct should fall. During the brief term of their official exist- 
ence the Ring Board distinguished themselves by several acts 
of vandalism, and by a habitual looseness of administration. 
But before much mischief was done the frauds of the Ring had 
been exposed, and the criminal prosecution of its chief members 
had begun. The last act of the old Park Board was to place in 
the custody of Mr. Green all the property in their possession, 
requesting him "to take all means in his power to protect and 
preserve the said properties and moneys and to transfer the same 
unimpaired to the Department of Public Parks or such other 
person or body as is lawfully entitled to receive the same; reserv- 
ing only papers, vouchers of accounts and documents as the said 

88 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

Comptroller may regard as necessary for the protection and justi- 
fication of the Board and its members and officers." 

The auditing committee of the Board reported that they had 
examined the accounts of Andrew H. Green, Esq., treasurer of the 
Board of Commissioners of the Central Park, up to and including 
the 20th of April, 1870, and the vouchers and payments charged in 
said accounts; that they find the said vouchers and accounts 
correct and satisfactory, and that the balance to the credit of the 
treasurer is $1 5,244.60. On this date, the 20th of April, the Com- 
missioners of the Central Park published, in compliance with a 
resolution adopted by the Board at its final meeting, an address 
to the people of the City and State of New York. After review- 
ing the work they had done during the thirteen years of the Park 
construction, and this address being signed by Commissioners 
Henry G. Stebbins, R. M. Blatchford, J. F. Butterworth, Charles 
H. Russell, M. H. Grinnell, Andrew H. Green, and Waldo 
Hutchins, the six colleagues of Mr. Green then appended to 
the address the following: 

Having presented the above address as the official act of the Board, there 
remains to be performed by the undersigned an act of justice and of duty in 
a full recognition of the obligations of the Commissioners of the Park and of 
the community to Mr. Andrew H. Green, their late associate in the Commission 
and Comptroller of the Park, with whom their official relations are now severed. 
At an early day Mr. Green exhibited those characteristics that justified the 
Commissioners in committing to him a large discretion and important respon- 
sibilities. His calm and reliable judgment and vigorous execution, and his 
cultivated taste, added to a patient forbearance and singleness of purpose, 
rendered him an administrative officer fully adequate to the duties and respon- 
sibilities of his executive position, and it gives the retiring Commissioners 
unqualified pleasure to pay this parting tribute to his abilities, his efficiency 
and his integrity. 



89 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE ERA OF PLUNDER OF TWEED AND HIS CONFEDERATES — THE 

EXPOSURE OF THE RING FRAUDS IN 187I MR. GREEn's 

APPOINTMENT AS DEPUTY COMPTROLLER OF THE 

CITY OF NEW YORK HOLDING THE FORT 

IN THE FINANCE DEPARTMENT 

THE Tweed Ring was something more than a passing 
phenomenon in the politics and administration of New 
York City. It exercised, from first to last, a con- 
trolling influence in the politics of the State; it had its plans 
laid for the capture of the Presidency, and the application 
of its characteristic methods to the conduct of the finances 
of the United States. It marked the supreme triumph of 
the application of the boss system to the conduct of municipal 
business, and it furnished a very complete demonstration of 
how much worse than worthless is "partisan responsibility" 
as a defence against corruption. Six Republican Senators 
whose votes were needed to secure the passage of the charter 
which confirmed the power of the Ring were publicly declared, on 
the authority of Judge Noah Davis, to have received ten thousand 
dollars each for their vote on the charter, five thousand for the 
support of kindred bills during the session, and five thousand for 
similar services in the following year. Yet of these six Senators, 
five were reelected by rural Republican constituencies, with this 
undisproved accusation standing against them. Tweed himself 
was reelected to the State Senate as the nominee of his party in 
1 871, after he had been shown by unanswerable figures to be the 
master thief of modern times. 

It has already been shown how the ground became prepared for 
the corrupt combination of Tweed. That combination became 
a tangible fact on the first of January, 1869, when A. Oakey Hall, 
for seven years District-Attorney of the county, became Mayor of 
the city. Richard B. Connolly had been Comptroller two years 

90 



ANDREW H A S W E L L GREEN 

earlier, and William M. Tweed, who had entered public life as 
Alderman of the Seventh Ward in 1852, and was elected to Con- 
gress a year later, had graduated through the position of School 
Commissioner to be the guiding spirit of the Board of Supervisors 
until its abolition by the Charter of 1870, and State Senator until 
that Charter enabled Mayor Hall to do his bidding by appointing 
him head of the new Department of Public Works. Under the 
terms of the charter, too, there emerged from behind the scenes 
the sinister figure of Peter B. Sweeny as president of the Depart- 
ment of Parks. Thus, as Mr. Tilden put the case, the Democratic 
party which for ten years had steadily pledged itself to give back 
to the people of the City of New York the rights of self-govern- 
ment, betrayed the pledge when it came into power. The com- 
bination of corrupt Democrats and corrupt Republicans which 
framed the Tweed Charter provided that the Mayor then in 
office should appoint all the heads of departments for a period 
of at least four years, and in some cases of eight years. When 
these heads of departments, already privately agreed upon, were 
once appointed, they were not amenable to any election change 
during their period of office; they were irremovable by the Mayor, 
who was the elective officer, and they could not be impeached 
except on his motion, and then they had to be tried by a court of 
six members, every one of which must be present to form a quorum. 
Thus, practically every legislative power and every executive 
power in the city government was vested in the half dozen men 
so installed for periods of from four to eight years in supreme 
dominion over the people of the city. 

But the trading politicians who, in the words of Charles 
O'Conor, had discovered that the City of New York might be 
made the Golconda of fraudulent cupidity, overshot their mark. 
The very completeness of their triumph hastened their fall, and 
the ease with which they could satisfy their rapacity contributed 
to their speedy ruin. There was incorporated in the Charter of 
1870 an apparently harmless provision to the effect that all lia- 
bilities against the County of New York, incurred previous to the 
passage of the Act, should be audited by the Mayor, Comptroller, 
and President of the Board of Supervisors, and the amounts found 
to be due should be provided for by the issue of revenue bonds of 

91 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

the County of New York payable during the year 1871. As one 
of its expiring acts, the Board of Supervisors was charged to 
include in the ordinance levying the taxes for the year 1871 an 
amount sufficient to pay the bonds and the interest on them. 
The claims provided for were to be paid by the Comptroller to 
the party or parties entitled to receive them upon the certificate 
of Mayor Hall, Comptroller Connolly, and President Tweed of the 
Board of Supervisors. The three auditors met but once, and 
passed a resolution directing the County Auditor to collect from 
the committees of the Board of Supervisors all the bills and lia- 
bilities provided for and declaring that the evidence of the same 
should be the authorization of the said Board or its appropriate 
Committees on certificate of its clerk or President. 

In other words, the resolution provided that all claims certified 
by William M. Tweed and Joseph B. Young, the president and 
secretary of the old Board of Supervisors, should be received as 
valid and should be paid. The man who filled the office of 
County Auditor was one James Watson, then a clerk in the Comp- 
troller's office, whose sudden death a year later hastened the ex- 
posure of the frauds of the Ring. Watson, with the aid of certain 
knavish tradesmen and others, who had done some work on the 
new county court-house concocted a mass of claims almost wholly 
fraudulent, and Hall, Connolly, and Tweed separately, but without 
any examination, certified them. The certifications amounted to 
a sum slightly exceeding ^6,312,000, and the Comptroller issued 
bonds to the required amount, depositing their proceeds with 
the Broadway Bank to the credit of an account kept there by the 
Chamberlain of the City of New York as County Treasurer. 
Watson's chief aids in the concoction of these claims were Andrew 
J. Garvey, James H. Ingersoll, and Elbert A. Woodward, and 
Mr. Tilden's subsequent analysis of the Broadway Bank ac- 
counts revealed the fact that every time Garvey collected 
$100,000 he paid over 66 per cent, of it to Woodward, the deputy 
of the clerk, Joseph B. Young, of the Board of Supervisors, and 
every time Woodward received 66 per cent, he paid over to Tweed 
24 per cent. Ingersoll's procedure seems to have been a little 
more complicated. On the two millions of warrants whose pro- 
ceeds he collected and paid over, Tweed's share appears to have 

92 



OF ANDREW H A S W E L L GREEN 

been 42 per cent. Briefly, to borrow the compact statement of 
Charles O'Conor: "The accounts of claims so audited were all 
false, fictitious, and fraudulent; they were made up by fraud and 
collusion between James Watson and Andrew J. Garvey, James 
H. Ingersoll, and Elbert A. Woodward; and the payments on 
such warrants respectively by the bank were, pursuant to a cor- 
rupt, fraudulent, and unlawful combination and conspiracy to 
that end by and between all the defendants, agreed to be divided, 
and were divided accordingly between Ingersoll, Garvey, Tweed, 
and others, unknown, their confederates." 

The proofs that there had been an organized conspiracy carried 
on for years, to defraud the taxpayers of New York, was known 
to every newspaper reader by the end of July, 1871. The public 
had become suddenly aware that the misgovernment of the local 
authorities had far exceeded what had been charged by the most 
violent of their opponents, while the extent to which they had 
plundered the public treasury appeared, even in the light of par- 
tial revelations, to be without any parallel in the annals of polit- 
ical infamy. For two years the taxpayers had been furnished 
with no report of the financial condition of the city. Nobody, 
save the men in power, and those in their immediate confidence, 
knew at what figure city bonds were being negotiated, at what rate 
the debt was increasing, or whether the expenditures of the vari- 
ous municipal departments were being kept within proper limits. 
With few exceptions, all classes of society had been stricken with 
a sort of blind confidence in things as they were. Respectable 
men lent their names to bolster the reputations of the chiefs of the 
city government, and became associated with them in enterprises 
involving millions of expenditure, and demanding the highest qual- 
ities of administration capacity and personal probity. When the 
New York Times published its startling series of excerpts from the 
records of the Department of Finance, the spell which had been 
woven with such infinite cunning, and which had served so well 
the purposes of its authors, was rudely broken. The revulsion 
of feeling was all the more powerful because of the implicit charac- 
ter of the misplaced confidence which had preceded it. The 
secret history of three years of local government seemed to have 
been touched on the surface merely, and yet there was the moral 

93 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

certainty that millions of public money had been stolen or squan- 
dered. People stood aghast at the facts which were revealed, 
but felt, probably, still greater alarm at the vague possibilities of 
what was still to be learned. From one end of the continent 
to the other there was nothing talked of, nothing printed in the 
newspapers, to compare in interest with the subject of the New 
York City frauds. The story traveled to the confines of civiliza- 
tion, and the press of the old world took up its parable against 
Republican institutions, and reminded us that the corruption of 
personal despotism and the corruption of Democracy had a mar- 
velous analogy. The country at large looked to the people of 
New York to do something, and that speedily, to show that a 
government by the people had vigor enough to correct the abuses 
which had been allowed, under a gross perversion of Democratic 
institutions, to attain such extraordinary proportions. 

The chief actors in the conspiracy were the men whom the law 
had invested with the power of issuing bonds, pledging to a 
practically unlimited extent the credit of the city. From the 
day on which it was made clear that these men had grossly be- 
^ trayed the public trust confided to them, no banker would touch, 
unless at a ruinous discount, any proposal for a loan which came 
from the dishonored custodians of the revenues of New York. 
Thus, the credit of the corporation had, for the time being, suf- 
fered shipwreck. It was well known that the city was perfectly 
capable of meeting all its liabilities however vast, after careful 
investigation, they might prove to be. But the financial com- 
munity, to whom the city had to look for assistance to tide over 
its difficulties, not only demanded a definite statement of the 
outstanding obligations of New York, but they refused to trust 
the spending of another dollar of borrowed money to the officials 
who had brought afi"airs to such a pass. For weeks, therefore, 
there was a deadlock in city business. The salaries of thousands 
of laborers, of policemen, of school teachers, of clerks, court attend- 
ants, etc., were running on, and there was no money with which 
to pay them. The men who had been the cause of all this would 
not get out, and they had framed legislation so cunningly that 
there was no legal means of putting them out. Thousands of 
poor families had a hard fight in August and September of that 

94 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

memorable year to keep the wolf from the door, all because the 
men who had dishonored the credit of New York City stood 
defiantly at their posts in spite of the storm of public indignation 
that assailed them, and the suffering which their knavish practices 
had brought upon the thousands who looked to the City Treasury 
for daily bread. 

Matters were brought to a crisis on September 14, 1871, by the 
granting of an injunction, at the suit of John Foley, acting as a 
taxpayer, to enjoin Comptroller Connolly from paying any more 
claims against the city. From the situation thus created there 
was no possible escape save in a change of the personnel of the 
local government. The four members of the Board of Appor- 
tionment against whom the injunction was aimed might, indeed, 
have defied public sentiment for some time longer. Three of 
them did, in fact, seem disposed to try the hazardous experiment 
of doggedly waiting until the storm should blow over. Another 
fortnight of this would, unquestionably, have brought New York 
under mob law, and to the very brink of social chaos. Already 
the presence of angry crowds of laborers, whose pay was many 
weeks in arrears, was a spectacle of daily occurrence around the 
City Hall. By and by the police would have grown mutinous, 
and would probably have left their posts altogether, in sheer 
despair of ever being paid. There was imminent danger of 
the city being compelled to face the sinister problem of an army of 
ten to fifteen thousand laboring men turned adrift from their work 
at parks, streets and boulevards, conscious only that somebody 
had cheated them out of their hard-earned money, and that there 
was money enough in the city to pay them if they could only get 
at it. Behind that lay the danger of the entire criminal class of 
the city being left without its accustomed restraint, and having 
only to contend here and there against hastily organized patrols 
for private protection. A vigilance committee could doubtless 
have arrested the progress of riot, incendiarism, wholesale plun- 
der and all the nameless horrors of a city in which law and order 
were dethroned. But the cost of such a remedy would have been 
appalling, and the good name and credit of the city would have 
received a shock from which they would have required at least 
a generation to recover. 

95 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Yet this was what the City of New York seemed to be steadily 
and helplessly drifting into about the early part of September, 
1871. What helped still further to inflame the public mind was 
the well-grounded fear lest by the time the quartette who ruled 
the city were got rid of, it would be found that all the legal evi- 
dences of their misdeeds were either concealed or destroyed, and 
thus the people would be cheated both out of their misappro- 
priated money and the punishment due to the betrayal of their 
trust. Toward the destruction of this evidence very consider- 
able progress had already been made in that celebrated and very 
transparent ruse known as the "voucher robbery." The men 
who were implicated in the raid upon the public treasury were 
also the custodians of the records which alone could convict 
them, and there seemed nothing to prevent the destruction of the 
chief portion of the archives of the city unless the taxpayers inter- 
vened for the protection of their own property. Thus, in the 
second week of September, 1871, New York stood facing the future 
with an empty treasury, a dishonored and distrusted city govern- 
ment, with thousands of poor men clamoring for the money that 
had been shamefully embezzled, and with other thousands of 
rowdies, thieves, and murderers waiting and thirsting for the time 
of license and pillage which seemed so near at hand. 

Up to this time the Ring had remained apparently unbroken; 
the four members of the Board of Apportionment had apparently 
resolved to stand or fall together, with the scornful query of their 
leader upon their lips: "Well, what are you going to do about 
it?" But it afterward proved that Hall, Tweed, Sweeny, and 
Connolly were by no means so united in purpose as their attitude 
toward the public seemed to suggest. It had become obvious 
that somebody had to serve as a scapegoat to satisfy the demands 
of law and public sentiment. Connolly was pitched upon for 
this purpose, and his three associates appeared to imagine that 
the head of the Finance Department would make no violent resist- 
ance to their plan of making him serve the purpose of a tub to 
be thrown to the whale of public indignation which threatened to 
make an end of them all. Naturally enough, Connolly and his 
friends did not regard the matter in this light, and, in a fortunate 
hour for the welfare of the city, the Comptroller sought the ad- 

96 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

vice of Mr. Samuel J. Tilden as to what he ought to do under the 
circumstances. 

Mr. Tilden met him on the morning of September 15th, and 
began by telling him that he could not be his counsel or assume 
any fiduciary relations toward him, and that he and all the others 
must surrender office and all local party leadership, and recognize 
the fact that their careers were ended. Quoting Mr. Tilden's 
own narrative: "To this he assented, but still wanted my advice. 
I counselled him that he had no right to resign his office into the 
hands of his confederates; that such an act would be a new wrong 
against the public. To his inquiry whether, if he remained, he 
could get money to carry on the government, I told him that I 
would consult Mr. Havemeyer, and we would meet him again that 
evening." Connolly, however, did not return until the following 
morning — the i6th — when he came accompanied by his coun- 
sel, and a conference ensued in which Mr. Havemeyer and Mr. 
Green took part. Mr. Tilden pressed Connolly to surrender his 
office into the hands of Mr. Green by deputing to him, as he could 
under a law which Mr. Tilden had discovered, all his official 
powers. It was represented to Connolly that if he threw him- 
self upon the mercy of the public and assisted the reformers, he 
would have less to fear than he would from his confederates. 
Connolly yielded to this advice. The papers were executed on 
the spot, and at the end of this memorable interview they left 
Mr. Tilden's house to go to the Comptroller's office and put 
Mr. Green in possession. 

The documents exchanged as a preliminary to this installa- 
tion are historic, and may be here reproduced. Mr. Havemeyer's 
letter to the Comptroller ran as follows: 

To surrender your office into the hands of a confederate would be a fresh 
betrayal of your trust, and while it might damage yourself would fail of doing 
justice to the community. The man you give place to ought not to be a tool 
of those implicated in the transactions which excite the public distrust and 
alarm. He should be the nominee of the citizens now seeking to protect the 
people. In that way alone can he have the confidence of the public or improve 
the credit of the city. 

Fortunately the law affords a perfect solution of the case. By Section 3 
of Chapter 574 of the Laws of 1871 you are authorized to appoint a deputy- 
comptroller who shall in addition to his other powers possess every power 
and shall perform every duty belonging to the office of the Comptroller, 

97 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



whenever the said comptroller shall by written authority, and during a period 
to be specified in such authority, designate and authorize the said deputy- 
comptroller to possess the power and perform the duty aforesaid. 

My advice to you is to forthwith appoint Andrew H. Green as such deputy- 
comptroller; to leave him to exercise the full powers of your office, without 
conditions and without interference, with complete custody of all books and 
papers belonging to your office; with the appointment of all persons whom he 
may think necessary to protect the public property and interests, and to 
enable him to carry out the most searching investigation, and to aid the com- 
mittee appointed for that purpose. 

I have carefully considered the selection I recommend. Mr. Green has 
knowledge and experience in the affairs of the city; has the most reliable char- 
acter for integrity; has no relations which could mislead him by bad influences, 
and is strong in the public confidence. If you adopt my advice, I shall insist 
on his accepting the disagreeable duty for the sake of the public interest. 

Yours respectfully, 

W. F. Havemeyer. 

Connolly's reply was as follows: 

Comptroller's Office 
OF THE City of New York, 
September i6, 1871. 
Hon. William F. Havemeyer: 

Sir. — Acknowledging the kindness which dictated your note to me of 
this date, and yielding to the force of its suggestions, I have determined to 
accept and favor the advice it offers. In thus acting, I am governed by a warm 
desire to restore the city department over which I preside to the confidence 
of the community, and to secure such an examination of the affairs of the 
city as will satisfy the just demands of the public. I have therefore appointed 
Mr. Andrew H. Green to the office of deputy-comptroller, believing his known 
character for ability and integrity, fortified by your approbation, will furnish 
abundant assurance that the financial situation of the city will be satisfactory, 
and will enable the department to command the necessary funds at once to 
discharge the obligations to the laborers on our public works, forming as they 
do the most meritorious class of the city's creditors. 

Very respectfully yours, 

Richard B. Connolly, 



Comptroller. 



Connolly wrote to Mr. Green as follows: 



Comptroller's Office, 
OF THE City of New York, 

September 16, 1871. 
Mr. Andrew H. Green: 

My Dear Sir. — The office of deputy-comptroller of this city having become 

vacant by the removal of Mr. Richard A. Storrs, I hereby designate and 

appoint you, Andrew H. Green, deputy-comptroller of the City of New York. 

I earnestly press upon you the acceptance of this office. The critical juncture 

in the affairs of the city and the condition of public sentiment seem to demand 

98 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



that the important transactions of my department should be conducted by 
one possessing the unlimited confidence of the public. In determining upon 
the action required by the present exigency, I have been guided by the advice 
of gentlemen whose respectability and prominence elevate them above all sus- 
picion of unfair or interested motive. I am endeavoring to act with sincere 
regard for the public interest; and to insure it against possible sacrifices and 
pursuing the authority and phraseology of the statute, I hereby designate 
and authorize you to possess the power and perform all and every duty belonging 
to the office of comptroller of the City of New York from the time of this appoint- 
ment to the first day of February, 1872. 

Very respectfully, 

Richard B. Connolly, 
Comptroller of the City of New York. 

The appointment lifted a load of anxiety from the mind of every 
reflective observer of the critical position into which the affairs 
of the city had been allowed to drift. Every honest and law- 
abiding citizen now breathed more freely since there had been 
placed in the very centre of the stronghold of the Ring a public 
servant whose executive ability was as well tried as his inflexible 
resolution and incorruptible character. As Mr. Tilden, writing 
some years later, put the case: "The possession of the comp- 
trollership by the reformers was a fatal embarrassment to the 
Ring. It involved a publicity of all the expenditures of the de- 
partments, and was a restraint on those expenditures. It created 
doubt and dismay in all their action. It was an obstacle to such 
modes of raising money as had brought the charter through in 
1870, and to the hope of reimbursing advances for such purposes. 
It protected the records, on which all civil and criminal actions 
must be founded, from such destruction as was attempted in the 
burning of the vouchers. Every investigation, including that of 
Mr. Booth's committee, was the fruit of that possession. So also 
was the discovery of judicial proofs in the Broadway Bank, and 
the collection of such proofs, which continued for eight months 
afterward, with important results which have not even yet be- 
come public. It divided the Influence of the city government in 
the elections and broke the prestige of the Ring." 

It was on Saturday, September 16, 1871, at 5 p. m., that Mr. 
Green, as deputy-comptroller, took virtual possession of the 
Finance Department of New York City. The announcement 
was made in the Sunday morning papers, and the city was 

99 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

stirred by the intelligence from one end to the other. Remem- 
bering the defiance of public opinion which had been manifested 
under Ring rule, the insolent refusal to the people of all infor- 
mation about their own affairs and the dull, despairing fear of 
impending municipal bankruptcy which had lately taken hold 
of the public mind, the dawn of the new era, as announced in the 
following sentences from the New York Tribune, September 19th, 
was very bright indeed: "His first official act was to submit all 
the papers asked for by the committee of citizens in furtherance 
of the investigation of the frauds now going on. His second act, 
made in the interest of public credit, was to announce that the 
interest on the bonds due November i, would be promptly paid 
by the City Chamberlain." To the public looking at things 
from the outside, the day was indeed one of promise and good 
augury for the future of New York City and of the Republican 
institutions which were being put to so rude a test. But to the 
resolute and upright man who had been suddenly placed in pos- 
session of, and left to hold, almost single-handed, the very key of 
a position fortified through long years of misgovernment and 
fraud, the prospect must have been sufficiently discouraging. 
Every department of the city government, and every leading 
official in it, from the Mayor downward, bristled with hostility 
against the man who suddenly confronted them as the honest 
representative of an outraged public sentiment, and with whose 
force of character they were too well acquainted to have the 
slightest doubt of his intentions. Those among them who knew 
that proofs of their complicity in frauds upon the city treasury 
existed among the records of the Comptroller's office, felt that it 
was a question of life or death with them to oust Mr. Green from 
his position. Every one who had an interest in the payment of 
payrolls filled with sinecures, of bills increased ten, twenty, and 
a hundred fold beyond their actual value, or of contracts which 
had been illegally made and fraudulently adrninistered — all 
such, and many more outwardly respectable participants in the 
abuses of local government, were at once arrayed in active hostility 
against Deputy-Comptroller Green. 

Mayor Hall refused to accept Mr. Green's oath of office, and 
sent round a circular to the various departments announcing that 

100 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

he did not recognize the official status of either the Comptroller 
or his newly appointed deputy. It was found necessary to place 
a posse of armed men in charge of the Comptroller's office, night 
and day, so as to guard against any attempt which might be made 
on behalf of the Mayor and the other members of the Ring to 
take forcible possession of it. Meanwhile, redoubled efforts were 
used to induce some man who possessed the confidence of the 
Ring to accept the comptrollership, which it was held had become 
vacant by the virtual abdication of Connolly. As Mr. Tilden 
narrates, on the i8th of September, the Mayor treated Con- 
nolly's deputation of Mr. Green as a resignation; and then, with 
singular inconsistency, assumed to remove Connolly, though he 
had lately declared he had no power of removal. The opinion of 
Charles O'Conor was sought, so that the validity of Mr. Green's 
possession might have the moral support of his great legal name. 
He examined the statutes, and found no reason for doubt, mean- 
while reducing his opinion to writing. An attempt, under color 
of judicial process, forcibly to eject Mr. Green was anticipated, 
and, finally, Mr. O'Conor's opinion saved the day. The Corpora- 
tion Counsel, evading the legal question, advised the Mayor, as 
a matter of expediency, to acquiesce in Mr. O'Conor's opinion. 
Legal tactics failing, a system of active annoyance was employed 
with the purpose of bullying and harassing Mr. Green, so as to 
drive him to throw up In disgust the great public trust which he 
had undertaken. Departments that had quietly submitted to 
months of steadily increasing arrears suddenly discovered that 
they were most urgently in want of the money which had been 
withheld from them. Departments that had greatly exceeded 
their legal appropriations by extravagance or fraud, or both, told 
the laborers who remained, through their fault, unpaid, that they 
had better go and demand their money at the Comptroller's 
office. Then, behind the more noisy claimants, there was the 
mass of honest employees of the city who had before them the 
terrors of approaching starvation, because the city treasury 
had been emptied for the benefit of political sinecurlsts, swin- 
dling contractors, and dishonest heads of departments and their 
parasites. 



lOI 



CHAPTER IX 

SUPPLYING THE NEEDS OF A BANKRUPT CITY TREASURY — ONE MAN 

AGAINST A LEGION OF ADVERSARIES THE ARDUOUS TASK OF 

THE REFORMER — THE MOMENTOUS CITY ELECTION OF 
187I — THE MENACE OF RIOT AND DISORDER 

THE financial situation at the date of Mr. Green's entrance 
upon the duties of acting-comptroller was briefly as follows : 
On September 14th the cash in the treasury amounted to 
$2,564,306, and as the first and most pressing necessity was to sus- 
tain the credit of the city, this sum had to be set aside to meet the 
$2,700,000 of interest on the funded debt which was shortly to fall 
due. Any failure to be prepared for this would have cost the com- 
munity millions of dollars in the depreciation of municipal securities, 
and in the difficulty of negotiating them which would have resulted 
from it. The problem to be faced was something like this : The 
city was running into debt on account of its police, school-teachers, 
laborers, clerks, etc., at the rate of forty or fifty thousand dollars 
a day, and had already incurred obligations to these public 
servants to the extent of several millions of dollars. Leaving 
out of sight all other claims on behalf of contractors, tradesmen 
and others which might be allowed to stand over until the meeting 
of the Legislature, how was the city labor, which could not wait, 
to be paid in the interim.'' The existing Board of Apportion- 
ment had forfeited all title to public confidence, and its hands were 
tied from pledging the city to another cent of indebtedness by 
the Foley injunction. The taxes had not begun to come in, as 
the Mayor had not even taken the trouble to convene the Board 
of Supervisors to give the legal authority for raising the taxation 
of the year. Even after the tax papers were issued and their 
proceeds had begun to flow into the public treasury, there were, 
approaching maturity, revenue bonds, issued in anticipation of 
these taxes, which every dollar received would be required to meet. 
The day of settlement could not be deferred, as it had been before, 

102 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

by the issue of new bonds, nor even by taking advantage of the 
legalized swindle which authorized the conversion of this kind of 
temporary indebtedness into a portion of the permanent debt. 
Both the courts and public sentiment had imposed upon all 
branches of the local government the observance of the maxim, 
"pay as you go." 

So, upon the acting-comptroller, presiding over an empty 
treasury and waiting for taxation which had not yet been au- 
thorized, was forced the task of keeping the schools open, the police 
at their posts, and the laborers at work, by means of his personal 
credit reenforced by the patriotism and liberality of the wealthy 
citizens of New York. And here comes in a forcible illustration 
of the value of a good name — the actual power in the money 
market, as well as elsewhere, of the unassisted weight of an un- 
blemished reputation. What Tweed with his millions could not 
do, what Sweeny with all his pinchbeck reputation as a "master 
mind" and a "great organizer" would have been laughed at for 
attempting, what would have been peremptorily refused to the 
chief magistrate of the city, was found possible by the unosten- 
tatious public servant who bore the title of deputy-comptroller. 
He borrowed from his personal friends and he borrowed from 
financial institutions the money which was to keep the city from 
chaos and mob rule, and he did this without being able to give 
anything like legal security on behalf of the city that the money 
would be repaid. The following paragraph from the New York 
Tribune^ of September 23d, may stand as a sample of many simi- 
lar transactions: "Acting-Comptroller Green visited the 
Clearing-House Association yesterday and requested a loan of 
$500,000, to enable him to meet payments now pressing. It was 
readily granted, although no legal obligation can be issued by the 
city while Judge Barnard's injunction remains in force." 

Considering the circumstances under which they were raised, 
the sums were not large; compared with the indebtedness which 
they were intended to meet, they were merely drops in the bucket. 
It was impossible to satisfy any but a small part of the demands 
of all the 15,000 or so of city employees, whose pay had fallen 
weeks, and in many cases months, in arrears. All the honest 
creditors of the city soon became satisfied, however, that the 

103 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

best was being done for them which could be done. The Depart- 
ment of PubHc Works, still in the hands of Tweed, and the De- 
partment of Parks, still controlled by Sweeny, were foremost in 
inciting the laborers under their orders to make persistent and 
violent demonstrations around the Comptroller's office, so as to 
get payment of wages which never would have been overdue but 
for the misdeeds of Tweed and Sweeny themselves. By and by 
even these demonstrations were rendered impossible by the quiet 
and resolute energy displayed by Mr. Green in the gradual liqui- 
dation of payrolls. Then the crowd of sinecurists who had been 
paid fat salaries for being simply at the call of their master, 
Tweed, were brought into requisition, and were instructed day 
after day, to hang around the Finance Department and give the 
acting-comptroller all the annoyance which they possibly could. 
Meanwhile, the men who had everything to fear from the pos- 
session of the Comptroller's office being in the hands of an honest 
man, had not abated one jot of their hostility against Mr. Green. 
The Mayor had, indeed, receded from his resolution to ignore Mr. 
Green's official status, but nearly four weeks after his appoint- 
ment as deputy-comptroller, determined efforts were made to 
force him out. The latest phase of this plot was a demand for 
the impeachment of Comptroller Connolly. Had this been 
successful it would of course have been followed by his suspen- 
sion from office, and the consequent removal of his deputy. The 
authors of this, as of other maneuvers during the last days of 
the Ring, rather underrated the power of public opinion. 

Mr. Green showed no sign of hesitation or of faltering in the 
work to which he had put his hand, in spite of the dogged and 
sullen opposition which met him in his contact with every de- 
partment of the city government. Relying upon the moral 
support of the honest majority of the public, he quietly and reso- 
lutely continued his task of bringing order out of the chaos into 
which municipal business had fallen; of seeing that the most 
necessitous of the public creditors were duly paid, and of provid- 
ing against further misapplication of the public money. These 
efforts were not confined to a strict and businesslike auditing of 
claims against the city (a process unknown in the Finance Depart- 
ment for several years), but extended to the cutting down of all 

104 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

sinecure appointments which came within the jurisdiction of the 
Comptroller's office. During the month of October, paragraphs 
like the following were of frequent occurrence in the daily press: 
"Deputy-Comptroller Green discharged yesterday eighteen useless 
attendants on the Supreme Court whose yearly salaries were 
$1,200 each." In the department under his immediate super- 
vision, Mr. Green set about the task of weeding out incompetent 
and useless appointments with equal energy. The Bureau of 
Markets was a perfect nest of sinecurists, frequently of the most 
disreputable character. Under the title of inspectors, clerks, or 
sweepers, there were scores of the lowest class of ward politicians, 
who never professed to perform any other duty to the city than 
drawing their pay once a month. For all of this the Comptroller 
was directly responsible, and very short work was made of it 
under the administration of Mr. Green. In the clerical force of 
both city and county bureaus of the Finance Department, the 
changes were equally dictated by considerations drawn from the 
necessities of the public service and the claims of the public purse. 
One side of this work is capable of being expressed by its pecu- 
niary equivalent. Every useless or incompetent servant, cut 
off from the municipal payroll, represented an annual saving to 
the taxpayers of so many hundreds or thousands of dollars. But 
this was only a part of the benefit which sprang from a consistent 
and unflinching course of civil service reform. In this, as in 
other departments of his work, Acting-Comptroller Green not 
only afforded substantial and immediate relief to the overbur- 
dened taxpayers but he erected and maintained a higher stand- 
ard of executive purity and administrative ability than had been 
known in the office he occupied for years before. 

While other people were vaguely talking about reform, were 
trading upon their professions of reform, and were doing about 
as much actual service in the struggle as if they had been beating 
Chinese gongs during a battle, this resolute and conscientious 
public servant was showing what could be done, without fuss or 
pretentious display, but with a concentrated energy and fixed 
determination which the enemies of reform very well understood. 
Between his time and ours a good many attempts have been 
made to formulate an intelligible and practical civil-service-reform 

105 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

platform. But in all the literature of the subject it would be 
difficult to find anything which strikes at the corruption underly- 
ing all our politics more directly and vigorously than the following 
circular of Deputy-Comptroller Green to the heads of bureaus 
in his department: 

October lo, 1871. 
To the Heads of Bureau Department of Finance: 

Referring to my circular of the 19th ult., relative to the hours of attendance 
of employees in this department, and for the better ordering and efficient conduct 
of its affairs, you are hereby further informed that every employee of this 
department is to understand that his services are engaged for the legitimate, 
prompt, and regular attention to the duties of the position to which he is 
appointed, and for no other purpose. His salary is supposed to be fixed as 
an adequate compensation for his services, and no person employed in this 
department will be allowed to accept or receive any fee, reward or compen- 
sation whatever, except his salary, for any service connected with the depart- 
ment, except where the fees are fixed and established by law; any infraction 
of this rule will be deemed sufficient cause for removal. No employee of this 
department will be required by any person in authority in this department 
to pay any portion of his salary as a political assessment, or for political purposes; 
that matter, as well as his political action, is left to the free choice of each 
individual. Salaries, in some instances now excessive, duplicate and immod- 
erate, will, as far as is in my power, be fixed and regulated so as to provide, 
as near as may be, a fair compensation for the rssponsibility and character 
of the services rendered. An effort will be made to equalize salaries, by reduc- 
tion and modification, to render them equitable and justly proportioned, so 
that one performing but light duties shall not be paid equally with another 
bearing a heavy burden of labor and responsibility. 

Neither persons holding sinecures nor incompetent will be retained in the 
department. 

Promotions will be made systematically and in regular order, and the earnest 
effort will be to deal fairly and justly with all, at the same time requiring diligent 
and faithful attention to the public wants. If stationery or printing, or any 
article or thing, is required in any bureau of this department, a written requisi- 
tion, signed by the head of the bureau, is to be made upon the undersigned 
therefor, and all orders for these, or any other articles or work, will be properly 
recorded before they leave the office. During office hours, 9 to 4 o'clock, 
employees of the department are expected to be at their respective places, to 
attend with courtesy, civility and alacrity, to those seeking information or 
transacting business with the department. The community, whom we are all 
here to serve, reasonably look for a change in the conduct of the affairs of 
the city government, and I expect from all connected with this department 
honest and faithful cooperation in the discharge of their proper duties to 
meet this just expectation. 

Very truly, 

Andrew H. Green, 
Deputy-Comptroller. 

106 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

It will be admitted that the man who wrote this was not 
afflicted with a tendency to vagueness, either in thought or ex- 
pression, and those to whom it was addressed knew very well that 
there was no possible question that its words would be trans- 
lated into acts. 

We have seen how the so-called Tweed Charter removed the 
Central Park Commissioners from office, but that in creating the 
new Board Mr. Green was still retained as a member. When the 
new Board was organized on May 3, 1870, Peter B. Sweeny was 
elected president, and Mr. Green was appointed treasurer, a 
position which he however resigned a month later. Under 
Sweeny's presidency the business of the Board consisted chiefly 
of registering his orders. From June 21st to September 13, 1870, 
there was no quorum present at the meetings. From September 
13 th to December 27th only the wishes of the president were 
formally confirmed. From the first, therefore, Mr. Green was 
rendered powerless by the hostile attitude of his associates, and 
a new regime of politicians, compactly organized and under one 
head, was found to have taken the place of the old Park Com- 
mission. Still Mr. Green did not resign, believing it to be his 
duty to remain in a position where he could do something at last 
to preserve Central Park from the vandalism that was constantly 
trying to invade it. Matters continued on this basis until 1871, 
when, with the fall of the Tweed Ring, Sweeny and Hilton re- 
signed and Henry G. Stebbins and Frederick E. Church were 
appointed in their places. On November 23, 1871, a meeting 
was held and the commission reorganized. Mr. Green had al- 
ready been appointed acting-comptroller, and was thus compelled 
to decline his election as treasurer of the Park Department. He 
continued to serve as Park Commissioner, however, until May 
I, 1873, giving to the duties of the office his sympathetic attention. 

In a personal communication addressed to William A. Booth 
and others, Mr. Green gives a brief review of his connection as 
Comptroller with the city improvements which as executive 
officer of the old Park Commission he had planned and directed. 
He says that when he took office as virtual head of the Finance De- 
partment, the schemes of plunder which had been grafted on the 
works planned by the Park Commissioners were just about ripen- 

107 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

ing and It fell to his lot to provide the funds to pay for what were 
originally beneficial projects, but which in the hands of the Ring 
had been made the occasion of extravagance and jobbery. Thus 
it became necessary to take measures to oppose the illegal and 
wasteful methods of carrying out these uptown improvements 
which had been developed during a period of gross administra- 
tive corruption, and which became a source of constant complaint 
on the part of property owners who were called upon to pay, in 
the form of assessments, a large part of their cost, long before 
the property benefited could either be used or sold for use. The 
course of action which circumstances forced upon Mr. Green 
furnished people who were looking for methods of attacking him 
with a plausible ground for the assertion that the Comptroller 
was opposed to all Improvements. Later, the enemies of economy 
changed their ground of attack, and, in order to neutralize Mr. 
Green's opposition to the premature and costly construction of 
avenues and boulevards, they pointed out his responsibility for 
all the more important improvements in the upper part of the 
island. To quote from an official communication to the Board of 
Aldermen: "The laying out, opening, and Improvement of the 
Boulevard, the Sixth and Seventh avenues. Avenue St. Nicholas, 
One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, and other streets, avenues, 
parks, and public places in the district bounded by Fifty-ninth 
Street, Eighth Avenue, One Hundred and Tenth Street, Sixth 
Avenue, Harlem River and Fludson River, were begun and prose- 
cuted by Andrew H. Green, when in control of the Central Park 
administration." 

To be charged with being opposed to all uptown improvements, 
and yet with being responsible for most of them, struck Mr. Green 
as being mutually destructive accusations, but he took occasion to 
state his position on this very important question at some length. 
He pointed out that it was only after it became apparent that the 
development of the upper part of the island would be seriously 
hampered and hindered by a slavish adherence to the plan of i8i I, 
that it was found necessary as a measure of economy to ask from 
the Legislature power to modify and adopt this plan to suit the 
peculiar topographical features of that section of the city. In 
pursuance of legislative power, granted in 1865 and subsequent 

108 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

years, the Commissioners of the Central Park proceeded to devise 
the plans which formed the basis of the entire system of streets, 
avenues, boulevards, and drives, between the Park and the Hud- 
son River and west of Sixth Avenue to the Harlem River. Mr. 
Green avowed that with the formation of these plans he had the 
most intimate personal connection, and that he should never 
cease to regard their development with special interest and solic- 
itude. He was as willing then to accept a fair share of respon- 
sibility for them as he was when they were first conceived, but he 
emphatically dissented from classing the operations of the origi-. 
nal Park Commissioners in the same category with those of "the 
reckless, wasteful, and ignorant authorities who are chiefly 
responsible for the later conduct and development of the works 
outside of the Central Park initiated by those Commissioners." 
He pointed out that it was no more the intention of the authors 
of the plans of 1866 than it was of those of the plans of 181 1 that 
their execution should be forced upon the city in advance of all 
the necessities of growth and population. The premature multi- 
plication of parallel routes of travel at great cost, and without 
public necessity, which had recently been witnessed, was, in his 
opinion, entirely at variance with the public requirements. 

The scale of expenditure upon which uptown improvements 
were originally planned had been largely exceeded; partly because 
the business of supervision and inspection had been allowed to 
fall into corrupt or incompetent hands, partly because the tax 
and assessment payers did not receive an average of four hours of 
honest labor for the honest full day's wages they paid; partly 
because the contract system had been gradually replaced by a 
method of doing work which, by treating mechanics and laborers 
as mere vassals and dependents, offered greater facilities for the 
direct exercise of political influence; and partly because, during 
the reign of the thievish oligarchy which had ruled the city, public 
officials and their friends were allowed to make fortunes out of the 
purchase of land, which was afterward overvalued for acquisition 
for public use by confederates and appointees of the same set. 
As an example of this latter abuse Mr. Green cited the case of 
Riverside Park. The original estimate of the value of the land 
of that Park was not more than $1,400,000. But because under 

109 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

improper influence opportunity was afforded to buy up the ground 
for the purpose of making a huge profit on the transaction, before 
it was valued and transferred for the public use, the amount paid 
for the land was not less than ^6,000,000. 

Meanwhile, in spite of exposure and the resultant storm of 
public indignation, Tweed remained doggedly at the head of the 
Department of Public Works — kept on issuing requisitions for 
public money with a profusion quite regardless of the fact that 
the legal appropriation for his department had been long ago 
exhausted, and continued with unremitting energy to send gangs 
of his sinecurists to pay their daily visit of bullying annoyance to 
the office of the acting-comptroller. Sweeny, also, kept his hold 
over the Department of Parks, and did his best, in his covert, 
insidious way, to defeat every step of the process of investigation 
and reform. Mayor Hall had reminded the public, in his airy 
fashion, at an early period of the struggle, that he was elected 
till January i, 1873, and that he intended to serve out his term. 
But the time for the November election drew near and its result 
was awaited both by the respectable section of the community 
and the leaders and followers of the Ring with considerable 
anxiety. The latter felt that defeat for their candidates at the 
election meant a Legislature pledged to carry out the work of 
reform, and involved for them the swift approach of the day of 
doom. The people, on the other hand, had been so long accus- 
tomed to see elections decided without reference to the enlight- 
ened sentiment of the community and had been compelled to 
recognize so abjectly the omnipotence of unscrupulous party 
organization, that they felt doubtful whether the spontaneous 
but imperfectly systematized movement of the honest masses of 
the city would carry everything before it. 

Even the Comptroller's office, the vital point of the enemy's 
stronghold, which had been held for the people against enormous 
odds, would surely be lost again if the polls spoke with an uncer- 
tain voice on November 7th. At the end of this first brief term 
of trial and difl[iculty from which the work of reform was either to 
take a higher departure, or with which it was to be brought to an 
abrupt end, Mr. Green was found, as at its beginning, struggling 
to maintain the city credit and to pay the city creditors whose 

no 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

necessities were greatest. The following item from the Com- 
mercial Advertiser of November 2, 1871, fairly indicates the way 
in which Mr. Green met the responsibilities of an extremely dif- 
ficult position: "The deputy-comptroller is applying the cur- 
rent receipts from taxes to the redemption of revenue bonds; 
$2,000,000 having been paid out for this purpose yesterday. By 
keeping strictly to this regulation, Mr. Green is helping, as far as 
practicable, to redeem the credit of the city. . . . Through 
personal solicitation and on his own responsibility Mr. Green 
has obtained advances from Wall Street bankers — the proceeds 
of which are devoted to the payment of clerks in the departments 
of the city and county government and to meet other daily ex- 
penses. Mr. Green is the busiest man in the city government. 
He is pestered daily by demands for money, and is consulted 
almost hourly by those who are engaged in municipal investiga- 
tions — but he is a model of patience as well as of executive 
capacity. There will be no more leaks in the treasury if it is in 
his power to stop them." 

The November election demonstrated that there could be no 
mistake about the popular endorsement of the cause of which 
Mr. Green was the sole representative in the city government. 
To the abiding disgrace of New York, however, a constituency 
was found ready to reelect Tweed to the State Senate, and to the 
great detriment of reform, the chief of the gang who had plun- 
dered the local treasury was allowed to remain at the head of the 
great Department of Public Works. Between such a man and 
the occupant of the Comptroller's office there could be no parley, 
albeit the statement has been made that Mr. Green's ability and 
honesty had always commanded Tweed's respect. A perfectly 
regular certificate, drawn in strictly legal form and testifying to 
the correctness of the accompanying voucher or payroll, would 
have been regarded as worthless by any honest man in the com- 
munity had it borne the signature of William M. Tweed. Day 
after day, after the election as before it, the acting-comptroller 
was required to deal with just such demands for public money. 
There was a moral certainty that the payrolls covered a perfect 
multitude of sinecures, and the question was how to refuse pay- 
ment to the rascals who took pay for doing nothing, without in- 

III 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

flicting injustice on the men who had actually earned their wages. 
Duty to the public evidently demanded that every possible pre- 
caution should be taken to separate fraudulent from just claims. 
By demanding sworn affidavits from Tweed's "inspectors," 
"clerks," etc., by insisting that their place of residence should be 
stated and some evidence brought that they really were employed 
as stated on the payrolls — by such means at least gross cases 
of fraud were checked, though it was obviously impossible, with- 
out the power of reorganizing the department from top to bottom, 
to preserve the public from being cheated. Of course, all this 
concern for the public welfare was repaid by Tweed with an in- 
creased measure of bullying and personal annoyance through the 
agency of the numerous crowd of idle loafers whose services were 
always at his disposal. Threats of personal violence were very 
frequently received from this quarter by Mr. Green and his chief 
assistants, and it was made sufficiently manifest that the real 
battle-ground of reform was to be found in the Department of 
Finance. 

It was not generally appreciated at the time, and has certainly 
not been since, how much tact and self-restraint on Mr. Green's 
part was required to avoid anything which might have given an 
excuse for organized rioting and disorder, while at the same time 
maintaining an attitude of steadfast opposition to the corrupt 
elements in the local government. Had the acting-comptroller 
allowed himself to be dragged into acrimonious controversy, had 
he ever paused in his work to reply to or retaliate for the attacks 
which were in a multitude of ways of daily occurrence, it is certain 
that enough of the forces of disorder were ready to be let loose 
seriously to disturb the peace and safety of the city. In short, 
for this and many other dangers which Mr. Green managed to 
avert, at this period of his public life, he is entitled to as much 
credit as for the more obvious and better known portions of his 
work. The very essence of that work was recognized by the pub- 
lic and the press to be to put a final stop to robbery in the govern- 
ment of New York City. But, as the city government was still 
constituted, this was a task beyond the ability of any one man, 
however honest and able. It is true that the Comptroller was 
invested with something like an absolute veto power over the 

112 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

larger operations of all the departments, but under dishonest or 
incompetent management, there were a hundred minor leaks of 
public money which he had no power, under existing circum- 
stances, of stopping. This absence of the direct control over all 
expenditures which belongs to a Department of Finance had been 
an abuse of gradual growth, and was certainly contrary to the 
spirit, if not to the letter, of all the laws regulating the office of 
Comptroller. The growth of this abuse had been greatly assisted 
by the practice of giving to each local department a Treasurer. 
These Treasurers and their subordinates claimed an independence 
of the central financial authority, equally at variance with law 
and the public interest. In most cases they claimed and exer- 
cised the right of making requisitions for the amount of their 
payrolls without stating them in detail. Being compelled to 
give some intelligible reason for their existence, they claimed the 
right of auditing their own accounts and of making their certif- 
icate of correctness final. All this manifestly tended to promote 
a system of petty stealing, and was besides a cumbrous, expen- 
sive and illegal method of doing the work which the Comptroller's 
office was created to do. A very large portion of Mr. Green's 
time and energy during his first year's occupancy of the Comp- 
troller's office was devoted to breaking up the abuses of financial 
supervision which long use and wont had invested with quasi- 
legal authority. It may be questioned whether this side of his 
work was fairly appreciated by the general public. It is very 
certain that the Ring officials, who clung to what they considered 
to be their vested right to spend money as they pleased, very 
soon saw the drift of the policy of the Comptroller, and on this 
account, as well as on others, he was followed with an ever in- 
creasing volume of misrepresentation and abuse from the mem- 
bers or representatives of the old regime and their sympathizers. 



113 



CHAPTER X 

APPOINTMENT AS COMPTROLLER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY — THE 
ANALYSIS OF RING SPECULATIONS HALF-HEARTED CO- 
OPERATION OF THE LEGISLATURE THE WORK 

OF AUDITING OUTSTANDING CLAIMS AGAINST 

THE CITY AN HONEST EFFORT TO 

COMBINE ECONOMY WITH 
EFFICIENCY 

ON November i8, 1 871 Mr. Green became by right, what he 
had been for two months in fact, the head of the Depart- 
ment of Finance. The official appointment, though signed 
by Mayor Hall, cannot be said to have emanated from him. 
Connolly had offered to resign as early as October 2d, provided 
that Mr. Green should be designated as his successor. This Mayor 
Hall at first promised to do — a promise from which he afterward 
receded when a partial gleam of sunshine seemed to have fallen 
on the prospects of the Ring. On October 3d, Comptroller Con- 
nolly's resignation was placed in the hands of Mr. William F. 
Havemeyer. That stalwart reformer acknowledged receipt of 
the resignation, with the following assurance: "I will not part 
with your resignation till it shall secure the appointment of 
Andrew H. Green as your successor." Nor did he, until the result 
of the November election had convinced Mayor Hall that the 
Ring was broken forever, and had induced that shifty politician 
to accept the inevitable. To whom the real credit of Mr. Green's 
appointment was due. Is sufficiently well expressed in the following 
quotation from the New York Times of November 21st: "If 
the citizens wish to know who really appointed Mr. Green, we 
can tell them in a few words. You did it yourselves. When 
you hit a Tammany head wherever you saw it, on the 7th inst., 
you made Mr. Green Comptroller, and put a final stop to 
robbery. Had you absented yourselves from the polls that day, 
Mr. Green would very soon have been overboard, and very little 

114 



ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

mercy would have been shown you by the Tammany Ring. 
Thank yourselves for the safety of your property." 

Fully to realize the significance of Mr. Green's appointment as 
Comptroller of the City and County of New York, it is necessary 
to keep in mind how apparently impregnable was the position 
occupied by Tweed and his associates before the partial exposure 
of the Ring frauds in the New York Times at the end of July, 
1871. The Ring controlled the machinery of justice, and what 
the Ring judges were capable of had been amply demonstrated 
in the course of the Erie litigation. During the ten months of 
continuous warfare against the Ring by the New York Times 
which preceded its publication of the crushing array of figures the 
business of the newspaper suff^ered because there were large adver- 
tisers, as there were large property owners, in New York who did 
not care to be noted as unfriendly to the ruling powers by giving 
support to their relentless assailant. The certificate signed by 
a committee of which John Jacob Astor, Moses Taylor, and Mar- 
shall O. Roberts were members, setting forth the correctness of 
Comptroller Connolly's accounts, was only one of the many evi- 
dences of how successfully the Ring had hoodwinked some of the 
best men in New York. The limitation of the rate of taxation 
in 1 871 to 2 per cent, had also its share in making people believe 
in the good intentions of the Ring, though it was afterward found 
that while the total amount necessary to be raised by tax in 1871 
was ^35,730,843, only ^23,362,527 was provided. The accept- 
ance by Henry Hilton, A. T. Stewart's man of affairs, of a place 
on the Park Board, where his influence was cast for the support 
of Peter B. Sweeny, was another proof of how skilfully the Ring 
had disarmed the opposition of citizens who apparently had the 
largest stake in the preservation of good government. If further 
proof were needed, an inspection of the names recorded as co- 
incorporators with Tweed in the Arcade Railway scheme, and of 
those who subscribed money to erect a statue in his honor should 
be sufficient. 

After the publication of the excerpts from the Comptroller's 
books in the Times, Mayor Hall feigned surprise at the gravity of 
the charges with which the city and county government had been 
assailed. He sent a message to the Board of Aldermen and Super- 

115 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

visors suggesting, among other things, that a non-partisan com- 
mittee of taxpayers should be associated with the committees 
appointed by the Board to examine the pubHc accounts. In 
naming the citizens' committee which was to act with them the 
Aldermen and Supervisors drafted a circular in which the dis- 
closures of the Times were characterized as "the gross attacks of 
a partisan journal upon the credit of the city," and in which the 
necessity was referred to of answering them "by a full report of a 
committee of citizens in whom the committee have the greatest 
confidence, as the good name of our city, its prosperity, and every 
interest dear to its people must suffer from libels so gross and 
attacks so false and exaggerated." 

This was toward the end of August, and it was nearly two 
months later before the committee, having meanwhile received 
invaluable aid from Acting-Comptroller Green, finished its work. 
In its final report the committee summarizes its conclusions as 
follows: I. The debt of our city is doubling every two years. 
2. Three million two hundred thousand dollars have been paid 
for repairs on armories and drill rooms, the actual cost of which 
was less than $250,000. 3. Over $11,000,000 have been charged 
for outlays on an unfinished Court-house for which building, 
completed, an honest estimate of real cost would be less than 
$3,000,000. 4. Safes, carpets, furniture, cabinet work, painting, 
plumbing, gas, and plastering have cost $7,289,466, which are 
valued by competent persons after a careful examination at 
$624,180. 5. Four hundred and sixty thousand dollars have 
been paid for $48,000 worth of lumber. 6. The printing, adver- 
tising, stationery, etc., of the city and county have cost in two 
years and eight months $7,168,212. 7. A large number of per- 
sons are on the payrolls of the city whose services are neither 
rendered nor required. 8. Figures upon warrants and vouchers 
have been fraudulently altered and payments have repeatedly 
been made on forged indorsements. 

With these facts before it, the committee was naturally com- 
pelled to report that, in its judgment, frauds and robberies of the 
most infamous character had been committed with the conni- 
vance and cooperation of some of the officials who were appointed 
to guard the interests of the people. It declared that the condi- 

116 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

tion of the city and county finances, as shown by these Investiga- 
tions, had served to destroy all confidence in the management of 
the present city officials. After recapitulating the demands upon 
the city treasury which would necessitate the borrowing of large 
sums of money at an early day, the committee felt constrained 
to say that it regarded as futile any attempt to borrow these sums 
of money while the city was controlled by its present management. 

Obviously, the great problem of Comptroller Green's financial 
administration, in its earliest stages, was how to pull the city 
through its difficulties till the meeting of the Legislature should 
give him and the mass of city creditors a much-needed relief. 
Nobody knew better than Mr. Green how much innocent suffer- 
ing had been occasioned by the reckless prodigality, or worse, of 
the heads of Ring Departments. He had strained every nerve to 
allow the honest workers of all grades to get their pay, to sustain 
the shattered credit of the city by paying off" revenue bonds as 
they fell due, and to give all possible assistance to contractors 
who had undertaken city work in good faith but had been cheated 
out of their regular payments because the money appropriated 
for them had been applied to other purposes. The Department 
of Finance reached the end of the year with its resources pretty 
well exhausted. Prompt legislative authority to raise money 
was not only much needed, it was absolutely Imperative. There 
were about six and a half millions of revenue bonds to be provided 
for during the first fortnight In January. Money for these had 
to be found after the passage of the required legislation. Had the 
bill providing for this indebtedness been passed within forty-eight 
hours after the meeting of the Lglslature, the task of raising so 
large an amount in the course of a few days would have been suf- 
ficiently arduous. As It was, the Governor's signature had hardly 
been affixed to the bill before the money had to be forthcoming. 

The majority of the "Reform" Legislature had not, unfortu- 
nately the singleness of devotion to the public Interest which 
characterized the occupant of the Comptroller's office. Various 
heads of city departments became alarmed at the prospect of 
the summary abolition of sinecures and the strict supervision 
over their expenditures which would have followed the entrusting 
to Mr. Green of the work of financial apportionment. Their 

117 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

influence soon became felt at Albany, and with the many weak 
and inexperienced men, and the fairly strong contingent of cor- 
rupt men who had been elected to the Legislature of 1872, their 
"arguments" were not entirely unsuccessful. It would be tedi- 
ous to follow the doublings and windings of slow-footed city leg- 
islation during the month of January. Briefly, the relief which 
had been so urgently demanded by the Comptroller on the first 
day of the year was not forthcoming until the year was five weeks 
old. Even then it was found that the powers of the new Board 
of Apportionment and of Audit — whose constitution was the 
net result of a month's wrangling — were very Imperfectly de- 
fined; and that, moreover, in inventing this clumsy machine for 
the disposal of old claims against the city, the power had been 
virtually taken from the Finance Department to perform any 
business without the consent of this Board. Both these imper- 
fections of the original bill had to be remedied In a supplemen- 
tary act, and hence came fresh delay and fresh hardship to the 
creditors of the city. The bill which was first introduced, in 
pursuance of the Comptroller's memorial, had been drafted by 
several leading reformers of both political parties, and was of a 
perfectly simple, effective and comprehensive character. The 
patchwork legislation which was substituted for It fulfilled none 
of these requisites, and helped, besides, to perpetuate sundry 
vicious administrative precedents. It was very significant of the 
low ideal of administrative efficiency which was then accepted 
in New York, that the absurdity of placing the heads of two 
Executive Departments upon a Board before which their own 
accounts would come for approval was not made a matter of 
adverse comment. The character of the men so placed obviously 
did not affect the principle involved. 

The members of the Board of Audit were also Invested by the 
Legislature with the functions of a Board of Apportionment. 
Acting in this capacity they had to be guided by the provisions 
of the 2 per cent, act of 1871 — that Is, they had the power to 
appropriate for the current expenditures of the fi'rst four months 
of the year one third of the total amount accruing from a 2 per 
cent, rate of taxation, after the deduction of the amounts re- 
quired for State taxes and Interest charges. But the expendi- 

118 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

tures of 1871 had turned out to be 50 per cent, in excess of the 
amount which was authorized under the 2 per cent. act. The 
old Board of Apportionment had deprived many charitable in- 
stitutions of the grants to which they were legally entitled and 
had allotted sums to the various departments in utter disregard 
of what they claimed to be their real necessities. The heads of 
departments had reciprocated by paying no attention to the 
legal limit which had been placed upon their expenditures, incur- 
ring in some cases obligations requiring four times the amount of 
money to which they were entitled by law. Hence the dire con- 
fusion of local finances with which Comptroller Green was com- 
pelled to struggle from the first day he took office; a confusion 
for which the men who had produced it tried to persuade city 
employees that the Comptroller was responsible. 

The enormous increase in the permanent debt of the city during 
1 87 1, the still further increase which was rendered necessary by 
the issue of bonds for the payment of the outstanding obligations 
of that year, and the imperative necessity that the revenues and 
expenditures of 1872 should be made to balance each other — all 
combined to render inevitable an increase in the rate of local 
taxation. Under the 2 per cent, act only 76 per cent, of the 
money required for the year's expenditures could be raised. It 
was thus absolutely necessary either that there should be retrench- 
ment in local expenditures or an advance in the rate of taxation. 
The Legislature refused to give the Comptroller the power of 
cutting down the expenses of the departments, which could have 
been done without the slightest injury to public business. It was 
therefore inevitable that in order to cover the departmental 
estimates the rate of taxation should be higher. The Comptroller 
addressed on February 28th another memorial to the Legislature 
which contained the following significant passage: 

"As government is now constituted there are thirteen depart- 
ments, besides numerous offices and other bodies, all spending 
money without ' feeling the responsibility of raising it. Either 
economy must be practised or a higher rate of taxation must 
inevitably follow from which there is no escape. The methods 
of the previous year were to delude the public by a low rate of 

119 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

taxation and by adding to permanent debt to provide other 
means to meet deficient revenue. Legislation which will compel 
a rigid economy of expenditure that is entirely practicable with- 
out diminishing the efficiency of the service, and public comfort 
and convenience, is much needed." 

Comptroller Green's remark about "thirteen departments 
besides numerous offices and other bodies" struck at the true 
root of half the administrative corruption of the city. At that 
time the sum of seventeen millions and a quarter was a demon- 
strably extravagant estimate for the cost of supporting the city 
and county government of New York for one year. And yet 
this was the lowest estimate to which the demands of the various 
departments could be reduced, simply because there was no 
supervisory authority capable of compelling a rigid economy in 
local expenditures. No one man was better qualified than Comp- 
troller Green to state, with perfect confidence, that such econ- 
omy was perfectly practicable without detriment either to the 
efficiency of the service, or public comfort and convenience. 
The legislation which should provide for the retrenchment so 
urgently demanded by the needs of the taxpayers was not, how- 
ever, forthcoming, for the simple reason that the survivors of the 
old political regime had a good deal more power with the people's 
representatives at Albany than had the people themselves. 

Meanwhile, the work of auditing the enormous mass of claims 
against the city, which kept pouring in upon the Finance Depart- 
ment, was being steadily and faithfully prosecuted. There are 
many ways of pretending to "audit" a bill, and but one honest 
and final way of doing it. There is, for example, the method of 
auditing by summary resolution similar to that practised by Mayor 
Hall and his colleagues of the Interim Board of Audit, of unsavory 
memory. Then there is the method, hardly less unsatisfactory, 
of getting three gentlemen to meet once or twice a week, and hear 
read over the titles of certain claims, before allowing them. 
This appears to have been the method contemplated by the 
Legislature of 1872, in creating the new Board of Audit. The 
actual process of examination and verification had, however, to 
be gone through in the Comptroller's office, by a well-disciplined 

120 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

force of clerks and professional experts, acting under the orders 
of a man who remained steadfast in his resolve that, so far as he 
could help it, not a dollar of public money should be paid out 
which had not been honestly earned. Among other claims, there 
were scores of payrolls to be audited as required by law, and this 
involved in all cases the summoning of each individual who ap- 
peared on such rolls to make affidavit that the services with 
which he was credited had been actually performed, and in some 
cases the calling of witnesses to testify regarding the true charac- 
ter of sinecure employees. 

Then there were hundreds of claims for supplies furnished or 
work done, ranging from five dollars to five hundred thousand 
dollars. Each of these had to be gone over, item by item, not 
only as a check on clerical accuracy, but with an eye to the fact 
as to whether the supplies or the work in question had actually 
been delivered or performed, and what were their true amount and 
value. It needs very little reflection to realize how enormous 
were the difficulties of putting in practice such a method of audit 
after years of wasteful and dishonest government had equally 
demoralized city employees and city tradesmen. It is impossible 
to estimate, with any approach to accuracy, how much was 
directly saved to the city treasury by this honest system of 
examining bills and payrolls. When it is remembered that the 
claims against the city which could pass through this ordeal with- 
out being considerably reduced were the infrequent exception, 
and that a very large number were thrown out altogether, It is 
obvious that the direct saving to the taxpayer, in dollars and 
cents, must have been a sum of impressive proportions. Even 
this, however, was trifling compared with the value of the advan- 
tage gained by setting up as a precedent for the future a sample 
of businesslike methods and honest work. 

Some people who would greatly have preferred the perfunctory 
method of auditing, practised by Mayor Hall and his colleagues, 
to the rigorous examination instituted under the supervision of 
Comptroller Green tried to discredit his honest work by repre- 
senting that he confounded parsimony with economy, and that 
under such administration public improvements would languish 
and public spirit be discouraged. A sufficient answer to this 

121 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

may be found in the following words addressed to a large meeting 
of the stall owners in Washington Market on the occasion of a 
visit of inspection made by Comptroller Green in March 1872: 
"Reform did not mean the stopping of the wheels of progress, 
but, on the contrary, it meant general improvement and progress. 
It meant a faithful appropriation of public funds for the purposes 
for which they were designed by law. It did not mean the rob- 
bery of nine dollars and the spending of only one on public works 
out of every ten appropriated by the Legislature. It meant good 
schools, clean streets, faithful performance of official duty, 
proper facilities for rapid transit, beautiful parks for the recrea- 
tion and health of all classes of citizens, adequate accommodation 
for commerce along our docks, and everything, in fine, to render 
our city worthy of its career as the metropolis of the western 
world." 

Comptroller Green's second memorial to the Legislature was 
dated February 28th, but two months later he was obliged to 
send a still more urgent request for attention to the financial 
necessities of the city. The Legislature had failed to amend the 
charter under which New York was governed; had failed to re- 
move any of the remaining representatives of Ring rule from their 
positions in the local government; had failed to make a single 
alteration in the status quo of municipal afi"alrs. It barely con- 
trived to establish some claim to the title of a Reform Legislature 
by taking measures for the impeachment and removal of certain 
notoriously corrupt judges. In regard to the reorganization of 
city affairs, it had, however, utterly and shamefully failed to 
accomplish anything. The abortive result of the session at 
Albany had a most depressing influence on the friends of reform, 
and served In a proportionate degree to revive the spirits of those 
who were working and waiting for a renewal of the reign of cor- 
ruption. Reflecting on what had been accomplished in six months, 
the most ardent reformers were obliged to confess that the single 
advantage they had gained in the conduct of city business was 
the retention of Mr. Green In the Comptroller's ofiice, together 
with all the energy, efficiency, and honesty of administration 
which he represented. As the New York Times put the case: 
"There have been failures, but when we are told that nothing 

122 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



has been done we must demur to the statement. It is a great 
thing to have Mr. Green in the Comptroller's office. . . . 
Think what Tweed & Co. might have taken out of our pockets 
since November, at the rate they had been robbing us during the 
last few years! No better off .'' Well, we have at least put a stop 
to the further pillaging of our property, and that is an advantage 
which honest taxpayers will not be slow to appreciate." 

In the first year of his term as Comptroller, the work thrown 
upon Mr. Green during the session of the Legislature, in addition 
to the usual business at his office, taxed to the utmost his powers of 
endurance. The measures for the financial relief of the city, for 
the legalizing of contracts rendered invalid by the neglect of 
statutory formalities, besides bills calculated to relieve the tax- 
payers of needless expense incurred for the support of superfluous 
bureaus — all such legislation, whether actually passed or merely 
discussed, necessarily demanded the close attention and super- 
vision of the Comptroller. Meanwhile, other reforms were not 
neglected. Among such was the revival of a practice which had 
long fallen into desuetude of putting up the leases of the city's 
property to open competition. For years it had been the prac- 
tice to lease ferries, market privileges, etc., to the political par- 
tisans and friends of the men in power, at a much lower price 
than could have been obtained for them by open bidding. The 
pecuniary value of a return to the old custom was very quickly 
demonstrated, as was also that of the application of the system of 
open competition to the sale of city stocks and bonds. It had 
become the custom to negotiate these latter through some private 
banker, or favored broker or negotiator. In this way millions 
of dollars of city indebtedness had been contracted for on terms 
by no means favorable to the public interest. One celebrated 
transaction, to the amount of fifteen millions, had been concluded 
without the public receiving the slightest intimation of the rates 
at which the bonds which represented it had been sold. It was 
only after the investigations of the Reform Committees, supplied 
with data from the Comptroller's office, began to shed light upon 
the secret places of city administration, that it was found that the 
portion of the fifteen millions issued before the appointment of 
Comptroller Green had been credited to the city at par only, while 

123 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

there was no record of the disposal of the 4 or 5 per cent, 
premium which had been obtained on the sale. Comptroller 
Green took the earliest opportunity of inviting public bids for 
city bonds and stocks, equally to the improvement of public 
credit and the benefit of the public purse. 

The vast sums which were due to the city on account of arrear- 
ages of taxation, assessments and leases, also received the unre- 
mitting attention of the Comptroller. Investigation revealed 
the fact that numbers of citizens, claiming to be respectable, had 
indulged the habit of allowing the payment of their taxes to 
stand over for years, and then obtaining the good offices of the 
Comptroller to secure the remission of accrued interest for which 
they had rendered themselves liable to the city. Many large tax- 
payers had thus secured for themselves the free use of capital at 
the expense of the honest part of the community. Their in- 
fluence was, of course, exerted in favor of the men to whom they 
owed the remission of interest which was equivalent to presenting 
them with a modest yearly income. It is facts like these which 
go far to explain the long apathy of the respectable portion of the 
New York community in regard to the misgovernment of the 
Tammany Ring. 

All through his incumbency of the Comptroller's office, Mr. 
Green was a rigid adherent of the doctrine that extensive retrench- 
ment of local expenditures was quite consistent with increased 
efficiency of administration, and that all branches of the public 
service ought to keep strictly within the laws which had been 
laid down for their guidance. Time and again the courts sus- 
tained the Comptroller in his interpretation of statutes which 
had theretofore been systematically ignored or set at defiance. 
It must have been a work of enormous difficulty to discover, 
amid the confused and often contradictory mass of Ring legisla- 
tion, what was the proper course to pursue in a given case. The 
supremacy of Tweed and Sweeny at Albany had been marked 
by a course of legislation intended to facilitate fraud by being 
susceptible of a double interpretation, and the effort to base 
honest procedure upon this class of statutes must in the nature of 
things, have been extremely arduous. Mr. Green was held 
responsible both for the interpretation of existing laws and for the 

124 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

failure of his predecessor to observe them. The Ring legacy of 
corrupt legislation and loose administration made Mr. Green's 
first year of office a time of perpetual toil and struggle, just as its 
legacy of financial anarchy made it also a time of wearing anxiety 
and exhausting labor. From first to last, of this early period 
in which he was practically alone in the work of Reform adminis- 
tration, Mr. Green neither courted public applause, nor professed 
to be indifferent to the value of the support of an intelligent public 
opinion. Personal attack failed to turn him one inch aside from 
the strict line of duty, or to provoke him into undignified con- 
troversy. He answered the expectations of friends and replied 
to assaults of foes by achieving solid results on the side of efficient, 
economical and honest city government. He struck at jobbery 
and corruption wherever he found them, regardless of the strength 
of the influence by which they were sustained, and remembering 
only that he was custodian of the public money with the duty of 
guarding its expenditure more carefully than if it were his own. 



125 



CHAPTER XI 

THE ANIMUS OF NEWSPAPER ATTACKS — SHORTCOMINGS OF THE 
LEGISLATURE OF 1 872 EMPHATIC SUPPORT FROM GERMAN- 
AMERICANS ELECTION OF MAYOR HAVEMEYER A 

CAMPAIGN OF NEWSPAPER CALUMNY THE 

' TRIALS OF AN HONEST PUBLIC SERVANT 

THE exposure of the frauds of Tweed and his associates was 
the work of a single newspaper which had made a deter- 
mined onslaught on the methods of the Ring with but little 
support from its contemporaries. In the restoration of order 
out of the administrative chaos in which the Ring had reduced 
the business of the city, Comptroller Green had from the begin- 
ning but little aid from the press of New York and, as time went 
on, not the least of his difficulties came from the unconcealed ill- 
will of most of the newspapers. The historic accuracy of the 
following statement made in the Jubilee Number of the New York 
Times is not open to question: "Mr. Green's refusal to pay any 
of the claims of the Tweed regime about which there could be the 
slightest question earned for him the hostility of nearly every 
newspaper in the city except the Times. Most of them had 
claims of their own on which the requirements of the new Comp- 
troller had a somewhat destructive effect." 

The whole business of corporation advertising had been one of 
the grossest swindles perpetrated by the Ring and its tools in the 
Legislature. Among his other powers Mayor Hall had that of 
awarding at his pleasure ^1,000,000 worth of corporation advertis- 
ing a year, and this was effectually used for the corruption of the 
press. Nor did the process end here. Sinecures on the city pay- 
rolls were distributed among the regular reporters, and even the 
hangers-on of the city newspapers, and it has been asserted that 
this practice was carried to such an extent that it was scarcely 
necessary for a person to do more than pretend to have some con- 
nection with the press in order to secure himself a more or less 

126 



ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

comfortable situation in some department of the city government. 
The Ring distributed its advertisements among twenty-six daily 
and fifty-four weekly newspapers. A good many of these were, 
of course, merely agencies by which some of the henchmen of the 
master thieves were allowed to share in the plunder of the city. 
No sooner were supplies stopped, than twenty-seven of them — 
seven daily and twenty weekly — suspended publication. Among 
the latter were the Official Railway News, the New York Argus, and 
the Home Gazette — three sheets which left a legacy of unpaid 
claims for advertising amounting to $437,300. 

But the most outrageous swindle in the journalistic line was the 
Transcript — a publication issued by the Transcript Association, 
which, together with its affiliated New York Printing Company, 
and the Manufacturing Stationers' Association, was owned for the 
most part by members of the Ring. From comparatively small 
beginnings the printing establishment of this concern grew to be 
a colossal one, containing more presses and controlling more 
material than any two similar establishments in the country. Its 
proprietors, among whom Tweed was prominent, aimed at noth- 
ing less than doing all the printing and supplying all the stationery 
first for the New York city government, and afterward for the 
State Government and Legislature, with the prospect of a future 
field of enterprise in the National Capital itself. In the years 
1869, 1870, and part of 1871, there was paid to the printing com- 
pany, the stationers' company, and the Transcript OYev $t,,c^oo,ooo, 
and the Board of Audit which had to dispose of the unpaid news- 
paper bills of the Ring was presented with a claim from the 
Transcript amounting to $168,000. 

On the creation of the Board of Audit there came pouring in to 
the Finance Department an enormous mass of outstanding claims 
for advertising. It was found that the law which furnished the 
authority for the proceedings of the Board did not permit it to 
pass upon the bills of the newspapers. A supplementary act had 
accordingly to be passed for this purpose. The language of the 
bill was made to suit the wishes of the lobby of newspaper claim- 
ants who had carried it through at Albany. Many of these 
persons had inserted city advertisements without proper legal 
authority, and they expended all their ingenuity in having the 

127 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

statute providing for the payment of their claims loosely enough 
framed to admit of the mere proof of insertion being held suf- 
ficient to establish their validity. The gentlemen who thus 
endeavored to save what they doubtless considered needless 
trouble were doomed to be disappointed in their amiable designs 
upon the public treasury. Even the Legislature of 1872 could 
not pass such a bill without the general requirement that the 
claim should be "audited." 

To Comptroller Green that word had but one significance — 
an honest and thorough examination. A supple and aspiring 
politician in his position would have hesitated before adopting a 
course of action which was certain to secure for him the active 
and implacable hostility of at least a dozen newspapers. Most 
men would have been glad to take advantage of the ambiguous 
language of the act, in order to avoid conflict, and would have 
made a compromise between a sense of public duty and a disin- 
clination to be made the target of persistent abuse, by giving the 
newspaper proprietors the full benefit of their tricky legislation. 
Comptroller Green was not, however, the man to hesitate in 
following out the strict line of duty at whatever cost of personal 
inconvenience or public misrepresentation. He audited the 
newspaper claims with the same strict impartiality which he dis- 
played in dealing with the bills of any tradesman who could not 
bolster up his claim by the possession of weapons of public abuse. 
A Board of Examiners, composed, for the most part, of men hav- 
ing a professional familiarity with the subject matter of these 
claims, was appointed to test every item which went to make up 
the two or three millions of dollars which were claimed from the 
city for past due advertising. It only requires a casual compari- 
son of the amounts awarded to the newspaper claimants with the 
amounts claimed to be able to form an idea of how large an ele- 
ment of fraud entered into these bills and how signal was the 
saving effected for the public treasury by the strict audit to which 
they were subjected. There were, of course, many cases in which 
the want of proper authority invalidated part of a newspaper bill 
without there being necessarily any downright injustice in it. 
There is probably no act of Comptroller Green's administration 
for which he is entitled to a greater amount of credit than for his 

128 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

rigidly just dealing between the newspaper claimants and the 
public. 

Among the other sins of omission of the Legislature of 1872 
was its failure to repeal the law creating an "official journal" in 
which had to be inserted all the advertising of New York city and 
county. Under the law, the Transcript, owned by Tweed, Sweeny, 
and a few others, had taken half a million of dollars out of the 
public treasury In the course of two years. The continuance of 
such a swindle during an era of presumed reform in city affairs 
would have been at once disgraceful and ridiculous. The dif- 
ficulty was how to fulfil the requirements of the law and yet pre- 
vent the taxpayers from being openly robbed for the benefit of 
men who ought to have been in State's prison. It rested with the 
Mayor and Comptroller to designate the "official journal," and 
as the consent of both was necessary to the choice of this vehicle 
of public advertising, there was considerable danger that in the 
very probable event of Mr. Green and Mayor Hall having dif- 
ferent preferences In the matter, the Transcript would be allowed 
to continue In existence at the public expense. The Comptroller 
met the difficulty by in\Iting the Mayor to concur with him In 
asking proposals for the work. The result was that the contract 
was awarded to the Daily Register, at $9,500 for the year be- 
tween June, 1872, and June, 1873, while, had the Transcript re- 
mained undisturbed, the same work would have cost the city a 
quarter of a million of dollars. 

The German element In New York furnished some of the most 
intelligent and steadfast supporters of Mr. Green's administra- 
tion, throughout the whole stormy term of his incumbency of the 
Comptroller's office. On July 18, 1872, a delegation representing 
the German-American Reform Associations of the City of New 
York, headed by Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer, the editor of the Staats- 
Zeitung, presented the Comptroller with a memorial recalling 
the "profound satisfaction and the deep sense of relief experienced 
by the whole community" when It became known that he had 
been placed In charge of the Finance Department. The memo- 
rialists went on to say that the appointment was hailed as the 
beginning of a much needed reform, and there was hope that this 
reform would be effectively carried out. But they recognized 

129 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

the fact that with almost every other department of the city and 
county government under control of the corrupt elements which 
had so long reigned supreme, it was but too evident that every 
possible obstacle would be thrown in the way of practical results; 
that Comptroller Green would be made the subject of misrepre- 
sentation, denunciation and abuse "by the legions whose plans 
would certainly be interfered with and their dishonest emoluments 
cut off." In all this they had not been disappointed, and they 
had seen moreover a Legislature chosen for the purpose of carry- 
ing out the demands of the people for reform, utterly failing to 
do more than show how not to do it. Not only had there been 
visible and almost entire lack of disposition in the various depart- 
ments to cooperate with the Comptroller in securing a more 
economical administration of the city, but even in the courts of 
justice there had been shown persistent obstruction to the efforts 
to reduce the army of attendants and officers. Further, in the 
words of the memorial: "We have seen a portion of the press 
exerting sufficient influence with the Legislature to compel the 
payment of enormous doubtful claims for work illegally performed 
and charged for at exorbitant rates, and this same press is now 
using its power to coerce or intimidate you into the auditing and 
payment of these exorbitant claims." The memorialists recog- 
nized the fact that with almost any other man than Mr. Green 
the opposition which he had encountered would have been suf- 
ficiently discouraging to have compelled his resignation, which 
they thought was evidently the purpose of those who were so per- 
sistently dogging and harassing him. With the enemies of an 
honest administration of the Finance Department so untiring 
and so unscrupulous in their efforts to break it down, it was 
obviously necessary that those who trusted in Mr. Green 
and had found him thoroughly faithful and true should show 
themselves equally vigilant and active in sustaining him in the 
battle which, almost single-handed, he was fighting for the 
people. 

Mr. Green was profoundly touched by these expressions of 
earnest sympathy and hearty support from men so thoroughly 
representative of the best citizenship of New York. He said that 
everything which had been done or attempted In the direction of 

130 



OF ANDREW H A S W E L L GREEN 

municipal reform had met with so warm an encouragement from 
the German press that he could scarcely be surprised at their 
visit. He added that he had gladly availed himself of many valu- 
able suggestions made by them and notably by Mr. Ottendorfer, 
and he went on to make this significant statement: "You have 
ever been earnest in the cause of reform; you have worked faith- 
fully with such men as Havemeyer, Schultz, Samuel J. Tilden, 
and Charles O'Conor, who are sustained by thousands and tens 
of thousands of inhabitants of this city and this State. So long 
as you and they see the necessity of reform, I do not think there 
can be any fear of failure. Amid all the danger of a presidential 
election, the issue of electing honest city officials is going to be the 
dominant one. The great majority of the citizens feel it to be so. 
The necessity is so potential as to command the support and the 
hard efforts of every honest man. I do firmly believe that the citi- 
zens will never under any pretext permit the affairs of the city to 
return to the condition of last fall." 

The peril that the issues of the presidential election of 1872 
might interfere with the election of a non-partisan city ticket, 
pledged to a radical and uncompromising policy of reform was a 
very real one. The coalition between the Democracy and the 
so-called Liberal Republican party had brought about the nomi- 
nation of Mr. Greeley as its candidate for President. The candi- 
date for Mayor of the combination was an eminently respectable 
man, Mr. Abraham R. Lawrence, and the Democrats formerly 
opposed to Tammany Hall had nominated a candidate of their 
own. The candidate of the Reformers, without distinction of 
party, was William H. Havemeyer, a Democrat of the old school 
who had been largely instrumental in placing Mr. Green in the 
Comptroller's office, and whose support of the policy of the Comp- 
troller was fully assured. Fortunately, in spite of all the efforts 
made to obscure the main issue, Mr. Havemeyer was elected by a 
majority of eight thousand, and for his term at least Mr. Green 
could confidently count on the unswerving support of the Mayor. 
Mr. Havemeyer's first annual message left no doubt in any- 
body's mind as to where the new Mayor stood in regard to the 
occupant of the Comptroller's office, as the following passage 
sufficiently attests: 

131 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



With a united administration sustaining and strengthening the Finance 
Department, much can be done in the interest of economy and good govern- 
ment. I regret, however, to say that instead of a desire to sustain this depart- 
ment, the successful management of which has been principally instrumental 
in securing all the beneficial results that have thus far been obtained, this 
success has led to the formation of combinations expressly designed to defeat 
and supersede it. The politicians who, for political purposes, think it necessary 
that they should control, or at all events, influence the administration of the 
treasury, are clamorous for a change. And they are supported by that large class 
of holders of fraudulant claims, who are willing, in order to secure a percentage 
of the nominal amount of their corrupt demands, to pay over the balance in fur- 
therance of any measure whatever which will open to them the treasury and also 
by those who, fearing that under the present administration a day of reckoning 
will come, when they will be called upon to make good to the treasury the sums 
they have fraudulently received therefrom are ready to contribute a large pro- 
portion of what they have thus obtained to save the remainder. 

We want no political instrument at the head of our Finance Department: 
no one who can be influenced by any other consideration than fidelity to the 
trust he undertakes. This department should have the exclusive control 
of all the financial concerns of the corporation. Through it, all claims against 
the city should be paid, after they have been duly audited and adjusted. I 
shall support the Comptroller in his efforts to have such an administration 
carried into practical operation. 

In his support of Mr. Green's policy of insisting on a legal exam- 
ination of every doubtful claim that came before him, Mayor 
Havemeyer never wavered. But the claimants whose raid on 
the city treasury was thus defeated were equally unswerving in 
their determination to oust Mr. Green and to place a more pliant 
incumbent in the Comptroller's office. In this endeavor they 
had the aid of most of the New York newspapers. It was not 
alone the journals of little character and feeble circulation which 
swelled the chorus of misrepresentation and abuse that followed 
Mr. Green throughout his entire term of office and which was 
especially loud during the first two years. The newspaper lobby 
at Albany, to whose activity in 1872 reference has already been 
made, resumed its activity in 1873 ^^^ encountered at every step 
the opposition of Comptroller Green. Being asked by resolution 
of the State Senate to communicate to them a statement showing 
the amounts claimed and the amounts paid to the various news- 
papers of the city during the preceding five years, and also of the 
claims presented and amounts paid by the Comptroller since his 
accession to ofiice, Mr. Green replied to the following effect: 

The amounts actually paid for advertising for the City and 

132 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

County of New York from 1867 to 1871 reached the sum of 
^3^569,676, which with the addition of further claims presented 
since 1871 made a total for five years of $5,180,995. The amount 
of unpaid claims presented to the Board of Audit under the law 
of 1872 was $2,112,236, on which there was allowed the sum of 
$500,917. An amount of $819,684 remained without final settle- 
ment, but most of this was set down as lacking authority or being 
wholly spurious. The Comptroller set forth that in the exami- 
nation of these claims there was found a great diversity in prices 
charged, and in the method of computation adopted by the vari- 
ous journals. Enormous demands were made for advertise- 
ments which were set up in a larger sized type, and charged for as 
having been printed in type two or three sizes smaller, the result 
being that an advertisement would occupy twice or thrice the 
space to which it was legitimately entitled, thus more than doub- 
ling the amount of the bill. One phase of the advertising swindle 
was to buy from a job printer at so much per thousand, copies of 
voluminous public documents like the Mayor's message of 1871, 
with reports of all the departments in full, and the official canvass 
of the election, covering sometimes from ten to twenty-six large 
newspaper pages, or from sixty to one hundred and fifty newspaper 
columns, issue these as part of the newspaper and charge for them 
the full advertising rates. Demands for this service were made 
of amounts ranging from $8,000 to $12,000 for which there was 
merely to show sheets bought of a job printer for less than $500. 
One leading journal which was distinguished for the virulence of 
its attacks on Comptroller Green had published the voluminous 
message of Mayor Hall with the accompanying documents, and 
while its readers supposed they were being furnished with these 
public papers as part of the news of the day, they were actually 
reading it at the expense of a dollar a line. The rates for ordinary 
advertising in the same paper were forty cents a line, and in this 
particular case the difference between one dollar and forty cents 
represented a sum of $11,000. As Mr. Green put the case, the 
claim of newspapers seemed theretofore to have been paid, when 
paid, at pretty much whatever they chose to ask, without much 
examination or question. He added that the great bulk of the 
pending claims was for a class of advertising matter of no interest 

133 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

or utility to one in one hundred of the community, and much of 
it of no use to anybody. 

From first to last, the sordid struggle conducted by the news- 
paper lobby at Albany to procure legislation which would override 
the Comptroller's audit of the advertising claims against the city, 
is one of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of the New 
York press. But it is one which must be well understood, if the 
historical investigator is to guard himself against a thoroughly 
false impression of the kind of work which Comptroller Green did 
for the City of New York when he was bringing order out of the 
chaos of its finances and reestablishing its shattered credit. 
With the final defeat of the Newspaper Claims Bill by the veto of 
Governor Dix, in September, 1873 the attacks on Mr. Green, who 
had furnished the Governor with reasons for his refusal to sign 
the bill, waxed fast and furious. Hardly a day passed without 
the invention of some new charge against the Comptroller; with- 
out some new device being called into requisition to harass and 
annoy him. The whole amazing mass of innuendo, objurgation 
and slanderous suggestion stands to-day as one of the most strik- 
ing examples in all journalistic records of the deliberate prosti- 
tution for the basest personal ends of the functions of public 
guidance. It was a favorite form of accusation against the 
Comptroller that he resisted on the most frivolous pretexts the 
payment of just claims against the city, and spent the public money 
in legal costs incurred in resisting such claims in the courts. In 
reply to a resolution of the State Senate in March, 1873, ^r. 
Green was able to show that since his accession to the Comp- 
troller's office all the costs, fees, and expenses paid on judgments 
and orders of court, other than vacation of assessments, amounted 
to ^674.56. But this did not prevent the ceaseless iteration of the 
charge that Mr. Green was needlessly, capriciously, and expen- 
sively litigious. 

Let one example out of many of such attacks suffice to illus- 
trate the recklessness of Mr. Green's assailants and the invulner- 
able strength of his own position. On September 16, 1873, the 
day after Governor Dix's veto of the Newspaper Claims Bill, 
there appeared in the New York Herald an editorial article begin- 
ning in this wise: 

134 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



While Comptroller Green has been rolling up the city debt by twenty millions 
at a time, and increasing the amount of interest paid by the taxpayers from 
two millions in 1870 to over five and a quarter millions in 1873, he has been 
vigilant in scrutinizing the accounts of the sweepers and scrub women who are 
employed in cleaning the public buildings, and unyielding in his determination 
to dock them their two or three dollars whenever they might be detained from 
their work by sickness or accident. We have a specimen of this watch-dog 
policy in the case of a poor scrub woman who has recently been driven to 
appeal to the courts to recover six months' pay due to her from the city for 
scrubbing at the new court-house. This poor woman met with a serious 
accident which prevented her for that period from performing the labor assigned 
to her, but the work was done for her by her daughter, assisted by friends. 
The city had the benefit of the labor of these volunteers, but Comptroller 
Green refused to pay the woman's bill and drove her into the courts. Judge 
Fancher issued a mandamus to compel the payment of the amount; hence, 
even in this scrub-woman economy, the Comptroller manages to saddle the 
city in the end with the additional burden of costs and interest. 

Four days before the publication of this effusion the Auditor 
of Accounts, Mr. Abraham L. Earle, addressed the following 
communication to the Comptroller: 

In placing before you the claim of Ellen Hanley for $345.56, which I have 
audited to-day in obedience to an order of the Supreme Court issued by 
Judge Fancher, I deem it my duty to call your special attention to the probable 
consequences of this summary method of enforcing the payment of claims 
against the treasury, contrary to conclusions respecting their justness reached 
after careful examination by officers in the Finance Department whose duty 
it is under the law to examine, audit, and approve them before payment, I 
confess I am greatly embarrassed by these proceedings in what I understand 
to be my duty. 

The claim originated before you took office, and is one of the relics of a 
past rule of disorder. Its amount is small, but its character is significant as 
a specimen of an enormous mass, the aggregate of which no one knows and 
no one can ascertain, but believed to be millions of dollars, which have for a 
long time been kept out of sight by those who hold them or by their advisers, 
in the hope that another administration, more to their liking and less scrutinizing 
would pass upon them. In this hope they have been disappointed, and they 
are now, under advisement, making a combined and concerted onslaught by 
flooding the courts and Finance Department with suits and writs of mandamus 
in order that, by creating confusion in the courts and misleading the public 
mind, possibly they may be forced through. 

The claim of Ellen Hanley has been before me for a long time, and after 
most careful personal inquiry during most of the months included in the claim, 
I became entirely satisfied that it should not be paid. The services alleged 
to have been performed were not performed by her, nor by her daughter, 
nor by any other person in her behalf. The injury which she pretended 
unfitted her for work occurred, as she informed me, the previous winter, and, 
as I am otherwise informed, on the occasion of a sleigh-riding party, so that 
for a period of more than six months prior to September I, 187 1, she had been 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



paid for work she had not performed. The claim was once, more than a year 
ago, as you may remember, before the examiners of the Board of Audit, whose 
examination was entirely independent of mine, yet their conclusions were 
precisely the same. 

My reasons for refusing to audit the claim were duly presented to the Supreme 
Court three months ago, and it was supposed the claim had been abandoned. 
. To audit and allow claims of this character where no service has been 
performed is not only wrong in itself, but it does great injustice to a large 
number of worthy persons in the service of the city and county who honestly 
earn their wages. 

Two years ago, on your accession to office, the payrolls were cumbered 
and loaded with the names of a large number of persons who like Ellen Hanley 
had been receiving pay without doing any work, and whom it was the duty 
of the Finance Department, as far as possible, to sift out and cut off. In 
this process of discriminating, between the worthy and unworthy it was un- 
avoidable that there was inconvenience to many innocent persons by being 
associated on the payrolls with the hangers-on; but this work has been so 
far accomplished that now, as for months past, the promptness with which 
payments are made after the rolls are received in the Finance Department 
challenges comparison with any department of industry anywhere, either 
public or private, and this, too, without any of those abatements or commissions 
to which, under the former administration, they were almost uniformly sub- 
jected. If, however, the efforts of this department to repel and reject claims 
which have no honest foundation, cannot be sustained, if the services of well- 
known and influential lawyers can easily be obtained to prosecute such claims; 
if the rule is to be that under a mere technical form of appointment, those 
who perform no service can obtain pay as readily as those who do honest 
work, it cannot be otherwise than that appropriations ample for the purpose 
at the beginning will be exhausted before the work is done, efforts to protect 
and defend the Treasury will be paralyzed, and the public service again lapse 
into that complete and utter demoralization in which you found it, and from 
the depths of which you have so persistently and so successfully sought to lift it. 

Mr. Green's idea of his duty in dealing with the vast and com- 
plicated mass of indebtedness bequeathed by the Tweed adminis- 
tration to its successors, was a very simple one. He pointed out 
the difficulties of presenting these claims for proper adjudication 
in the courts were enormous. Most of them appeared duly cer- 
tified by the heads of departments and their subordinates. But, 
as he asked with unanswerable force, would any one be disposed to 
accept the signature of Tweed, Sweeny, or Connolly as sufficient 
evidence of the validity of a claim against the city; would a bill 
certified by men like Coman, Ingersoll, or Norton be regarded by 
the honest administrator of any trust as a legal obligation against 
the estate under his care.? Those charged with the administra- 
tion of the affairs of the city were simply in the position of trustees 

136 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

in regard to claims which matured under the fraudulent rule of the 
Ring. He held that there was a moral and legal obligation to 
call in the aid of the courts to determine the precise standing of 
bills about which there was either a strong suspicion or certainty 
of fraud. Judges were elected and paid for performing, among 
other things, just that kind of work, and the taxpayers looked to 
them to extend all the aid which the nature of their office allowed 
to those who were engaged in protecting the public treasury 
against spoliation. There are a great many points of judicial 
procedure which are left to the discretion of the occupant of the 
Bench, and which are not covered by any explicit rule of law. 
In such a time as the city was then passing through, the Comp- 
troller held that the taxpayers had a right to expect that the 
indulgence of the court should, at least, not be used to their prej- 
udice. But the record of some recent cases went to show that 
even this modest expectation was being disappointed. The view 
of all fair-minded men in regard to the position of the Comptrollc 
at the time when newspaper attacks on him were most venomous 
and most persistent, was fairly expressed on October lo, 1873, by 
the Brooklyn Eagle, whose position of detachment enabled it to 
take a saner and juster view of New York affairs than most of 
the journals published nearer the City Hall. An editorial article 
on "Comptroller Green and his Difficulties" contains the follow- 
ing passages: 

Mr. Green took the helm when Connolly's knavish fingers had been forced 
to surrender it. He was selected for the hazardous post by no less keen and 
honest a gentleman than Samuel Tilden, who knew the sterling character of 
the man when he enlisted him as his lieutenant in the only genuine reform 
movement that ever occurred in New York. Mr. Green was no blatant 
politician. On the contrary, he was a plain citizen of excellent repute, un- 
questioned integrity and religiously faithful to every public trust that he 
had been induced to undertake. The crisis in which he was persuaded to 
take so grave a step would have dazed a less thoughtful and less patient char- 
acter. The city treasury was in a state of complete chaos. The accounts 
were a maze of irregularities and obscurities. A hundred thievish hands had 
been engaged in effecting burglarious entry at a hundred different points. 
It was a task that would have driven a skilful accountant to desperation, 
aside from all its other deplorable contingencies, which Mr. Green heroically 
undertook in behalf of the public at the instance of Mr. Tilden and the few 
honest men who came forward in the hour of distress to set the vexed and 
battered vessel once more on its even keel. 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



At first the newspapers of New York supported Mr. Green with an ominous 
enthusiasm. They pronounced him the savior of the civic credit, and assigned 
to him a high place among the worthies who had sacrificed themselves in behalf 
of their public duty. But in an unfortunate moment, if Mr. Green belie his 
character enough to consider any moment of an absolutely honest career, 
unfortunate, he discovered among the greedy cormorants, most of the press 
of New York. Mr. Tweed had fed them so fat on superfluous plunder that 
they had grown to look upon their share of the booty as an absolute right, 
and when the Comptroller, measuring every account with the same compass 
of rigid honesty, applied the test to their "claims" scarcely less infamous in 
their rapacity than the more naked impudence of Tweed's mercenaries and 
accomplices in theft, a general alliance was effected, and the howl of the 
rejected sinecurist was echoed at once by the abuse of the very newspapers 
which had strewn compliment and praise in the early footsteps of Mr. Green. 

Since then, encouraged by the savage antipathy to Mr. Green of the local 
press, there has been hardly an intending swindler of the city who has not 
ostentatiously paraded his fraudulent "claims" in court and prayed for 
mandamus against the Comptroller, being confident that whatever were the 
merits or demerits of his case, the New York papers, with some admirable 
exceptions, were still smarting enough from amputation of their own "claims" 
to join in denunciation of Mr. Green's niggardly policy. 



138 



CHAPTER XII 

CITY FINANCES IN THE PANIC YEAR — THE MARKET VALUE OF 

CHARACTER AND THE DEFENCE OF THE CITy's CREDIT 

RESUMPTION OF THE DEMAND FOR CITY AND COUNTY 
SECURITIES — A DASTARDLY ATTEMPT AT ASSASSI- 
NATION THE CITY BUDGET OF 1 874 AND 

ITS HIGH RATE OF TAXATION LITI- 
GATION BY DISAPPOINTED CITY 
CLAIMANTS 

THE financial panic of 1873 made a substantial addition to 
the difficulties and perplexities of Comptroller Green's 
position. For one thing, it closed the usual market for 
city bonds, and afforded to a hostile press a new pretext for the 
charge that the credit of the city was being seriously impaired by 
the policy of the head of the Finance Department. When the 
city administration was traveling fast on the road to ruin in 
1871, the journalistic organs of the Ring tried to arrest the proc- 
ess of exposure by proclaiming that the city's credit was in 
danger. By 1873, when the amount of the penalty which had to 
be paid for Ring plunder was fairly manifest, newspapers of 
which better things might have been expected, took a malicious 
pleasure in making it appear that the municipal debt of New York 
was increasing at a perfectly ruinous rate, and that, moreover, 
all the increase of the debt since September, 1871, had been due 
to the extravagance of a Reform Administration. The favorite 
line for Tammany advocates in these days was to try to make it 
appear that the peculations of Tweed were a very old story and 
that all the expenditures incurred since Connolly went out of 
office were justly chargeable to the administration of his successor. 
The fact was that hardly a week had elapsed since the fall of the 
Ring in which the Finance Department had not been compelled 
to deal with some of the results of the bad legacy of Tweed and his 
confederate swindlers. Four fifths of all the mandamuses which 

139 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

were so copiously applied for at that time in the courts against the 
city were based upon claims for materials and services furnished 
previous to September, 1871. 

The facts in regard to the city debt were sufficiently simple and 
were easily within the reach of the envenomed assailants of the 
Comptroller. They were briefly these: The Joint Investigating 
Committee, of which Mr, William A. Booth was chairman, de- 
clared the net amount of the city and county debt, on September 
16, 1871, to be $97,287,525. As compared with the statement in 
the Mayor's message of January i, 1871, this showed an increase 
of $24,000,000 in eight months; as compared with the same state- 
ment on January i, 1869, the increase amounted to $61,000,000. 
The statement of Mr. Booth's committee was made before the 
taxes of the year had begun to come in, and when the revenue 
bonds issued in anticipation of these taxes had, therefore, touched 
their maximum. Had Tammany remained in power, these bonds, 
payable within the year, would simply have been transformed 
under the operation of the Debt Consolidation Act, Into part of 
the funded debt of the city and county. As It was. Comptroller 
Green found, on assuming office, that the Ring had not only 
mortgaged, by the issue of short bonds, every dollar of the taxa- 
tion of the year, but had also anticipated the ready conversion of 
these bonds by allowing nearly every department of the local 
government to expend In less than two thirds of the year the entire 
appropriation allowed for the twelve months. The taxes of 187 1 
were Intended, like those of preceding years, to furnish a fund for 
fresh plunder, and the debt would have been allowed, as usual, to 
take care of itself. 

On September 30, 1873, the net amount of all classes of city 
indebtedness was $115,237,390. The gross increase, therefore, 
in two years was $17,949,865. This was readily accounted for 
under the following heads: (i) As part of the penalty of the 
Tweed period of misrule, the city treasury had to Issue bonds on 
account of old claims to the amount of $9,692,397. (2) Under 
the head of permanent additions to the city's wealth there had 
been expended for the purchase of land for Riverside Park, the 
widening of Broadway from Thirty-fourth to Fifty-ninth Street^ 
and the extension of Madison Avenue, the sum of $11,434,913. 

140 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

(3) For the construction of Croton mains and other improve- 
ments effected by the Department of Public Works, bonds had 
been Issued to the amount of $7,358,500. Thus, apart alto- 
gether from the payment of old debts, the city was able to show a 
solid equivalent for the $17,949,865 which had been added to its 
Indebtedness during the two years In which Mr. Green had been 
at the head of the Finance Department. 

Meanwhile, it was obvious, toward the end of September, that 
it would need a good deal of financial ingenuity to pull the city 
through the two following months. Had the administration of 
local finances not enjoyed the fullest confidence of New York 
capitalists, it would have been impossible to carry on the business 
of the city In anything like Its entirety. Had a crash such as 
occurred in 1873 come about the time of the Ring exposures in 
1 87 1 nothing could have saved the city's notes from going to pro- 
test, because it would have been equally impossible to renew them 
or to get in taxes enough during the three months following to meet 
them at maturity. Even as things were, the dangers attending 
the system of tax collection long after expenditures based on the 
taxes of the year had begun to run, was forcibly demonstrated. 
The expenses of the city departments began with the first of 
January each year, and the taxes to meet these expenses did not 
begin to come in until nine or ten months afterward. Hence 
arose the necessity of mortgaging the taxes of the year before 
they were collected; of Issuing certificates of Indebtedness under 
the name of revenue bonds, to be liquidated as the taxes were 
received. Considering that the current expenses of the various 
city and county departments were about two millions a month, it 
was greatly to the credit of the financial administration that the 
amount of revenue bonds issued up to the third week in Septem- 
ber 1873, did not exceed $10,000,000. When the Tweed and 
Connolly regime closed, about two years before, the amount of 
revenue bonds outstanding was $22,700,000. 

When toward the end of November an advertisement for 
proposals for city bonds to the amount of $2,717,000 elicited only 
two bids for a fraction of the amount, the newspaper assailants of 
the Comptroller loudly proclaimed that his financial management 
of municipal affairs had brought the city credit to a very low ebb. 

141 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Mr. Green met these attacks with the ridicule they deserved. He 
said that within the last fortnight, at a time when the panic was 
almost at its height, and when a general feeling of insecurity pre- 
vailed among capitalists generally, he had gone to Wall Street 
to raise two and one half millions of dollars. He found great 
readiness on the part of bankers and capitalists to aid him. In 
that one afternoon he was able to procure all the money that was 
needed. He attached very little importance to the fact that the 
bidders for city stock were less eager than they had been on some 
previous occasions. They were so many different uses to which 
money could be put just at that time, and it was quite possible, 
nay, very probable, that men with a large amount of ready money 
at their command should have a choice as to the best means of 
investment. It was easy enough for any one to say that ^105 
ought to have been paid for bonds sold at ^103, but the fact that 
the bonds were sold at all was sufficient to prove that the policy 
adopted by the Comptroller's office was the policy which had the 
confidence of the taxpayers. 

Comptroller Green was very prompt to recognize however, 
that the city's credit had been pledged for street improvements 
which were chargeable to property owners with entirely unneces- 
sary liberality. At that time, say December, 1873, the city and 
county debt of New York was equivalent to a burden of ^112 on 
every man, woman, and child in the city, while the debt of the 
nation, large as it was, merely represented a per capita burden of 
$51. The markets of the world were open to the bonds of the 
United States, but for the bonds of the City of New York, thanks 
to their bewildering variety and the utter lack of system in their 
classification, the market was very limited indeed. The savings 
banks had always been the chief purchasers of our municipal 
securities, but as the savings banks had, in 1873, been subjected 
to a steady drain on their resources, these institutions, by the 
close of the year, were selling instead of buying New York bonds. 
The time was highly opportune, therefore, to make an appeal to 
the Legislature to relieve the community from the burden of 
carrying assessment bonds for the benefit of property owners 
who were always ready to employ lawyers to find some technical 
reason for vacating assessments. The lower part of the city had 

142 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

been laid out on the principle that when property owners wanted 
a street opened or improved, they should first pay their assess- 
ment and get the work done afterward. The Comptroller main- 
tained that the upper part of the city could be laid out under a 
similar rule, if the Legislature had only sufficient pluck and 
honesty to prefer public interests to the clamor of the combined 
lobby of contractors and assessment lawyers. Assessment bonds 
already appeared as part of the city debt to the somewhat formi- 
dable amount of $21,500,000. This item was called part of the 
temporary debt, but it had become, in reality, a permanent charge 
against the city. In fact, the increase of these bonds went on 
much faster than their liquidation; their increase between Janu- 
ary and December, 1873, having been over $5,000,000, The 
Citizens' Investigating Committee of 1871 had appealed to the 
Legislature to aid the corporation in curing errors in street open- 
ing proceedings, "to recover advances made in good faith for the 
execution of works petitioned for and designed for the benefit of 
local property owners." A similar appeal had been made to 
every succeeding Legislature, but the lobby had been too strong 
for the people in every case, although the vacation of assessments 
was costing the city $1,000,000 a year, of which $250,000 went 
into the pockets of speculative lawyers. 

By the beginning of 1874 the Comptroller was relieved of at least 
one source of anxiety, by the resumption of the normal demand for 
the city securities. In the first week of January, the entire 
amount of city and county stock offered by the Comptroller was 
promptly taken up, and from that time forward no difficulty was 
experienced in having all the bond ofi"erings fully subscribed. 
That fact did not in the least deter the disgruntled newspapers 
from keeping up the chorus of "Bankruptcy in Sight" for the 
overburdened city, and even of making disparaging comparisons 
between the condition of the public finances under Comptroller 
Green and under his predecessor Connolly. As a matter of fact, 
it took a long time for Mr. Green to receive the same measure of 
justice from the local press that he commanded in newspapers at a 
distance. Even from so unlikely a quarter as Augsburg in Ger- 
many, there came from the Jligemeine Zeitung in the latter part 
of 1873 the following just appreciation of the situation in New 

143 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

York: "As a general thing, It may be considered in Europe an 
unimportant matter whether an isolated city in America is gov- 
erned by honest men or thieves. But it cannot be so with New 
York. She, as a city, has asked the confidence of foreign coun- 
tries, and her commercial people are in constant intercourse with 
the people of other countries. And it is of the first consequence 
that these foreign countries should have confidence in the govern- 
ment of the city in which so much and many of their interests are 
constantly being deposited. The great danger of seeing the 
government of the City of New York again in the keeping of 
dishonest people is by no means over. If we correctly read the 
signs, a new ring is being formed from the remnants, mainly, 
of the old, and only needs the removal of the present Comptroller 
to be speedily completed. . . . The former corruption in 
many of the departments is by no means eradicated. It is deep- 
rooted, and, we fear, alive, although it may not now appear above 
ground." 

With Mr. Green standing as the most active and aggressive 
representative of an honest administration of the affairs of the 
City of New York — a target for the attack of every disappointed 
claim-hunter, every disgruntled politician, every expropriated 
sinecurist, and every indicted plunderer of the treasury — it 
would, perhaps, have been strange if no attempt had been made 
on his life. He knew, throughout the whole term of his incum- 
bency of the Comptroller's office that he was the object of the 
virulent hatred of the gang he had helped to discomfit. His life 
was frequently threatened, he was followed menacingly on the 
streets, and although he never gave any Indication of fear himself, 
his associates were constantly on the alert for acts of violence to 
his person. On Thanksgiving Day, 1873, Mr. Green's messenger 
took from the postoffice with other mail a package which immedi- 
ately aroused his suspicion. It was a box about ten Inches long, 
six Inches wide and two Inches thick, wrapped in paper, prepaid 
at letter rates, and addressed by means of printed letters cut 
from newspapers. When the messenger laid the package on Mr. 
Green's desk he warned the Comptroller that It looked suspicious. 
Mr. Green agreed with him, and It was submerged In a pail of 
water for three hours. It was then cautiously opened, and was 

144 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

found to be filled with powder and a dozen or more metallic 
cartridges. Inside of one end of the box matches were inserted 
standing on end, their heads in contact with a piece of sandpaper 
attached to the under side of the sliding cover. There was an 
extreme probability that had Mr. Green opened this infernal 
machine, as intended, he would have been killed on the spot. 

From quarters less obviously criminal there continued to ema- 
nate in 1874 newspaper attacks on the head of the Department of 
Finance. When the tax rate of that year was fixed at the unusually 
high figure of 3.40 per cent., there arose an outcry that the Comp- 
troller was responsible for the burden which was being laid on the 
taxpayers. The budget of 1874 with its accompanying rate was 
compared unfavorably with the 2 per cent, levy of the last year of 
Ring domination. The fact was forgotten, or deliberately sup- 
pressed, that the rate necessary to cover the actual expenditures 
of 1871 was not 2 per cent, but 3I per cent. As the fruit of a 
device adopted to facilitate their schemes of plunder, the Ring 
thieves left about $12,000,000 of just debts unpaid in 1871. 
These the city had to pay, principal and interest, later. More- 
over, as a consequence of Tammany tactics in the dealings with 
the State Treasury, the County of New York had to pay, in 1874, 
$1,000,000 more of State tax than it did in 187 1. As the result 
of the additions made by the Ring to the city and county debt, 
there had to be provided $3,000,000 more for the payment of 
interest than in 1871. From the taxation of 1874 there had to be 
met $2,000,000 of long bonds then matured, no such charge hav- 
ing been incurred In 1871. Moreover, the city had to raise as its 
share of the cost of what was known as the Fourth Avenue im- 
provement — namely, the sinking of the tracks of the New York 
Central Railroad, $1,500,000 in 1874, a charge unknown in 1871. 
Street cleaning cost $500,000 more in the former than in the latter 
year; the Police Department consumed another $500,000 for 
additional patrolmen, etc., while for new buildings and other 
departmental works there had to be paid in 1874 at least $500,000 
which in 1871 would have gone to swell the permanent debt. 
Briefly, the new expenditure, due either to the growing necessities 
of the city or to the legacy of unliquidated debts left by the Ring, 
amounted to one fourth of the entire tax levy, and but for the 

145 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

existence of these charges the rate of taxation for the year would 
have been, instead of 3.40 a little over 2.50 per cent. In other 
words, the same items of current expenditure which in 1871 
called for a rate of nearly 3.50 per cent, could have been met in 
1874 by a rate of 2.50 per cent. 

These were figures which the newspaper assailants of the Comp- 
troller persistently ignored, as well as the figures relating to 
another favorite point of attack, the expenses of his own depart- 
ment. The facts were that the actual expenses of the Finance 
Department for which warrants were drawn on the Chamberlain 
in the year 1871 amounted to ^520,390, while those for the year 
1873 were only $459,594. Here was a demonstrated saving of 
$60,796, but this was by no means all. For the salaries of the 
department, the amount expended in 1871 was $361,496, while 
for 1873 it was $290,027. But the Bureau for the Collection of 
Assessments, which was in 1871 an office in the Department of 
Public Works, was by the charter of 1873 transferred to the 
Department of Finance. After adding the eight months' expenses 
of this bureau to the saving effected in salaries under Comp- 
troller Green, there is shown an actual economy of over $86,000 
or about 30 per cent, less than the salary account under Connolly. 
Meanwhile the current business of the Finance Department had 
been increased at least fourfold by the provisions of the new 
charter. With the single exception of the police, all salaries, 
claims and wages had to be paid by the Finance Department, 
and outside of the city departments all other charges against 
the city and county had to be there adjusted. Formerly every 
department, with one exception, had a separate treasurer, and 
there was no revision or audit of claims by the Finance Depart- 
ment. In 1 87 1 there were 9,975 warrants drawn; in 1873 there 
were 49,779, showing, as far as any conclusion can be drawn from 
this class of work, that the amount of business had increased 
fivefold. Then, there was the further fact that the enormous 
arrears of old claims involved an amount of laborious and detailed 
examination which was as foreign to Connolly's administration 
as the unearthing of evidence to convict swindlers in the past or 
the ceaseless vigilance to defeat them in the present, which were 
no slight part of the labors of the department under Mr. Green. 

146 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

It will not sound superfluous to those familiar with the newspaper 
literature of this period to repeat that, under Comptroller Green 
the work of the Finance Department was not only done infinitely 
better than in 1871, but four times as much of it was done, and 
that at an expense 30 per cent, below its former cost. 

When every other line of attack failed, there was the unfailing 
resource of malignant assailants that Mr. Green had too many 
lawsuits on hand. It was forgotten or ignored that the Legis- 
lature though appealed to year after year to pass some act under 
which the mass of indebtedness incurred previous to 1871 could 
be regularly disposed of, had year after year failed to comply with 
the request. The newspaper proprietors were the only class of 
municipal creditors whose bills, accruing previous to 1871, had 
been paid off under the statute provided for the purpose. Then 
the culpably loose system of keeping books and accounts, and the 
swindling methods of entering into contracts practised during the 
rule of the Ring, left the Comptroller no choice but to test old 
claims by the ordeal of the courts. The expense of defending 
these suits had not amounted to one hundredth part of the sum 
saved to the city. Over three million dollars worth of claims had 
been rejected by the courts up to the close of 1874. Many suits 
for small amounts, which were decided against the city, were in- 
stituted because Mr. Green acted on the principle that it was his 
duty to refuse the claims of sinecurists — the class that was 
loudest in traducing him. The first suit of this kind was brought 
by a clerk in the Comptroller's oifice. He had been there 
throughout Connolly's term at a salary of $2,000. His services 
consisted of going to the office once a month to draw his pay. 
Mr. Green discharged this member of the barnacle family, and 
withheld his last month's salary, but the city was compelled to 
pay it. Another illustration of the multitudinous petty claims 
with which Mr. Green had to deal was a suit for payment of a 
month's labor as sweeper in the markets, which the claimant 
pretended to have performed in the summer of 1869. Mr. Green 
disputed the bill, because he knew nothing about it and could find 
no one who did, and an action was brought. The plaintiff testi- 
fied to his services, as specified, and recovered. This verdict 
opened the floodgates, and hundreds of suits followed for similar 

147 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

services, until the excessive greed of one lawyer exposed the 
system. His list of clients consisting of bogus claimants con- 
tained the name of an honest man, who incidentally learned of the 
proceedings to which he had unwittingly been made a party. 
This man turned up in court, to the surprise of his volunteer 
counsel, and testified that he never swept the market, never had 
a claim against the city, and never authorized anybody to sue on 
his behalf on such a claim. 

This disposed of the market-sweeping suits, but the oppressed 
scrub women still found vociferous and tireless defenders. The 
newspapers of the period continued for months to publish abuse 
of the Comptroller, largely based on the following state of facts: 
When Mr. Green entered upon the duties of his office, he found 
that his predecessor had been paying nearly three hundred women 
^75 per month for services as scrubbers. One claimant being 
refused payment, admitted that she had been absent for a month, 
but added that the alderman who was her patron had told her 
she could draw her pay all the same. Some little experience of 
this method of robbing the city brought about an investigation on 
the part of the Comptroller, which resulted in reducing the scrub- 
list to forty and the pay to $30 per month. 

All through the most strenuous part of Mr. Green's struggle 
with municipal misrule, nothing is more remarkable than the ease 
with which men holding responsible business positions in New 
York were induced to lend their names to memorials and move- 
ments intended to embarrass and obstruct the work of the Comp- 
troller. One specially malignant and mischievous busybody, 
whose efforts to drive Comptroller Green out of office lasted as 
long as a sympathetic press would furnish space for his wordy 
lucubrations, supplied a conspicuous example of the heedlessness 
with which men who ought to have known better were accustomed 
to affix their signatures to public petitions. The one in question 
bore date of March 10, 1874, and purported to be a memorial 
emanating from a Reform Association of which its author was 
almost the sole promoter. It contained charges against Mr. Green 
of "gross mismanagement and culpable incompetency to adminis- 
ter the affairs of the department of which he is the head." The 
memorial was signed by some eight or ten obscure persons repre- 

148 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

senting the so-called association, but there was cunningly appended 
to it a supplementary petition respectfully asking of the Legis- 
lature that a thorough investigation should be made at once as to 
the several matters set forth in the memorial. To this was 
procured the signatures of some of the leading bankers and presi- 
dents of insurance companies in New York. When these gentle- 
men found the character of the document to which their names 
were appended, they began with one accord to disclaim all desire 
to place themselves in the attitude of critics of Mr. Green's 
administration. They had supposed, from the representations 
of the person who presented the paper, that it was a petition to the 
Legislature asking for an investigation of the financial condition 
of the city. But the significant fact was that the signers of an 
utterly false and misleading series of charges had to plead that they 
neither read nor examined the contents of the paper submitted to 
them. The exposure of the trick which had been played upon 
these overtrustful representatives of the financial interests of New 
York had at least the merit of exposing the animus of the attacks 
which had been so persistently made on the Comptroller, and the 
utter lack of character of the men who were behind them. 

Mayor Havemeyer transmitted to the Legislature an exhaus- 
tive reply to the charges made by the bogus Reform Association 
against Comptroller Green, in which he pronounced all the charges 
to be pure fabrications, appending to his communication letters 
from a number of the capitalists who signed the memorial with- 
out reading its contents. All through the legislative session of 
1874 there continued, however, the persistent effort to legislate 
Mr. Green out of office, and, by making it elective, to insure its 
control by Tammany Hall. The political conditions of the time 
happened to be entirely favorable to a revival of Ring methods, 
probably in a form less crude than that which prevailed in 1869 
and 1871, but a revival of substantially the same influences and 
the came standards of administration. The course of the fall 
election of 1874 for municipal offices was destined to illustrate the 
fact, and a brief explanation of the conditions which had brought 
about the virtual exhaustion of the strength of the reform move- 
ment will be required to render the remaining phases of Mr. 
Green's struggle to defend the city treasury entirely intelligible. 

149 



CHAPTER XIII 

DISAPPOINTING RESULTS OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT — DISTURB- 
ING EFFECTS OF PARTY POLITICS ON THE MUNICIPAL ELECTION 

OF 1874 EFFORTS TO LEGISLATE THE COMPTROLLER 

OUT OF OFFICE A COMPREHENSIVE REPORT TO THE 

LEGISLATURE OF THE FINANCIAL CONDITION OF 

THE CITY — A MOVEMENT TO NOMINATE 

MR. GREEN AS MAYOR — END OF HIS 

TERM AS COMPTROLLER 

A DISPASSIONATE and impartial observer, taking stock 
of the results of the Reform movement up to the second 
half of the year 1874, said that the people of New York 
had cause for thankfulness "that the banditti who stole with 
mathematical precision and shared the spoils by a minutely 
accurate division — who subsidized the newspapers, corrupted 
Legislatures, bought and sold judges, tampered with the ballot, 
and gave impunity to crime, have been scattered and rendered 
incapable of further mischief." But he insisted that the benefit 
had fallen so far short of what might have been, and what was 
promised, that the general feeling was one of disappointment, 
and the spirit which made the reform successful, had grown lan- 
guid and apathetic. There was a disposition to lay the blame on 
Mayor Havemeyer for the lack of vitality in the sentiment of 
reform only three years after the organized movement against 
the Ring was started by the formation of the Committee of 
Seventy. Undoubtedly, the Mayor had taken a somewhat 
childish delight in surprising the public by acts of wrongheaded- 
ness, and some of his appointments, in addition to being mani- 
festly unfit, were calculated to provoke ridicule. His steadfast 
loyalty to Comptroller Green was the strongest point of his admin- 
istration, and presented a most effectual bar to a reversion to the 
old corrupt methods under a change of form. But the Mayor's 
influence was a disorganizing, rather than a constructive one, so 

150 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

far as the continuance of business methods in the city government 
of New York was concerned. He had no conception of municipal 
government freed from the domination of party poUtics, and men 
who were honestly striving to have the conduct of city affairs 
subject to the same standards that would apply to those of a great 
industrial or financial corporation, found frequent occasion to 
take exception to the course of Mayor Havemeyer. 

The professional politicians of both parties were, of course, 
active, and watchful for the opportunity to undo the work of non- 
partisan reform. At the very outset of Mayor Havemeyer's 
administration, complaints began to be heard that an attempt was 
being made to cheat the Republicans out of the fruits of a vic- 
tory which was legitimately theirs. The spokesmen of the party 
whose organization had endorsed Mr. Havemeyer said that if a 
party victory were to be claimed, they must claim it on behalf cof 
the Republicans. As a matter of fact, nobody had been claiming 
a partisan victory, but neither side cared to understand the mean- 
ing of non-partisan government as applied to city business, and 
public sentiment on that point was a good deal less educated 
than it is to-day. Though the idea that the City of New York 
could be treated by contending sets of political partisans like a 
conquered province, had been emphatically negatived by the 
people, it still retained a powerful hold over the minds of poli- 
ticians great and small. The fight for non-partisanship in city 
government had really only begun, and it was becoming obvious 
that its first victory had been very far from complete, and was not 
destined to be lasting. 

The only effort made at the fall election of 1874 to take the 
choice of the chief magistrate of the city out of the hands of the 
professional politicians, was by a body calling themselves Inde- 
pendent Democrats. While endorsing the nominees of their 
party for State offices, the platform of these reformers declared: 
*'That, while in our general political action we give effect to the 
views we entertain by supporting candidates of like sentiments, 
we deem it to be our duty as citizens to support local candidates 
whose election will aid to relieve our city from the disgraceful rule 
of two unworthy and incompetent men (John Kelly and John 
Morrissey), and that we invite all good citizens, irrespective of 

151 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

party, to unite with us in the accomphshment of that object." 
There was a further resolution beginning thus: "That, at the 
present crisis in our municipal affairs, all good men should unite 
in an effort to secure an honest and economical administration of 
our city government." On this platform Mr. Oswald Otten- 
dorfer was nominated for Mayor. 

On the Republican side, the appearance of Mr. Tilden as the 
candidate of his party for Governor of the State was skilfully 
used to reinforce the argument for hard and fast party nomina- 
tions for all elective offices. It was the services rendered by Mr. 
Tilden in purifying the judiciary and sending to prison or exile the 
chief members of the gang who had looted the city treasury which 
made him the most available candidate for Governor that his 
party could provide in 1874. But Mr. Tilden was also one of the 
most trenchant assailants of Republican administration of the 
affairs of the nation. In the brief speech he made after his 
nomination by the Democratic State Convention he said: "The 
Federal Government is drifting into greater dangers and greater 
evils. It is rushing onward in a career of centralism, absorbing 
all governmental powers and assuming to manage all the affairs 
of human society. It undertakes to direct the business of in- 
dividuals by tariffs not intended for legitimate taxation, by grant- 
ing special privileges, and by fostering monopolies at the expense 
of the people. . . . These tendencies must be stopped, or 
before we know it, the whole character of our Government will be 
changed; the simple and free institutions of our fathers will not 
only have become the worst government that has ever ruled a 
civilized people, but it will also be the most ignorant." This 
and the "bad ambition of a third term" which President Grant 
was believed to cherish, were favorite themes with Mr. Tilden, 
and it was recognized that his election as Governor of the State 
of New York would make him the foremost candidate of his party 
for President of the United States. 

With indifference and division in the ranks of the municipal 
reformers, and with the Republican party machine ready to re- 
sume its old bargaining with Tammany for a share of municipal 
patronage, in return for running its own candidate for Mayor, the 
result of the city election was hardly doubtful. As a matter of 

152 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

fact the Tammany candidate, Mr. William H. Wickham, polled 
more votes than those cast for Mr. Ottendorfer and the Republi- 
can candidate, Mr. Salem H. Wales, combined, and the danger of 
making it possible to confuse municipal issues with those of State 
and national politics was once more demonstrated. The bitter 
comment of the New York Times on the result, fairly expressed 
the conviction of the thoughtful portion of the New York public: 
"If anybody had said in the fall of 1871 when the public indigna- 
tion against the Tammany Ring was at its height, that in three 
years the same political organization, with but a slight change of 
leaders, would be able to control the affairs of this city, that person 
would have been laughed to scorn. Yet, with but one important 
exception (the Register) every Tammany Hall nominee for local 
office was elected yesterday." 

It was not long before it became evident that the forces which 
had gone to the making of the old Ring were again in the ascend- 
ant. The cohorts whose favorite occupation was "fighting 
Green," found a ready ally in the newly elected Mayor of the city, 
and the President of the Board of Aldermen. Finding it the 
readiest avenue to publicity and approving comment in the col- 
umns of the city press, the associates of Mr. Green on the Board 
of Apportionment indulged in continuous nagging of the man who 
had presumed to disregard every claim against the city of whose 
legal validity there could be any question. The men who em- 
ployed this cheap way of making political capital are forgotten; 
the fame of the man whom they tried to injure is secure. But for 
a time, the ordeal was a sufficiently irritating one, all the more so 
as the evident purpose of the Mayor and his coworkers was to 
drive Mr. Green from the office which there was more compelling 
reason than ever that he should continue to hold in the interests 
of the city. 

The politicians, whose creature the Mayor was, prepared a bill 
which was introduced by Assemblyman Costigan shortly after 
the meeting of the Legislature of 1875, conferring on the Mayor 
the power to remove the heads of city departments without first 
obtaining the approval of the Governor of the State. This bill 
was avowedly aimed at Comptroller Green, and within a month 
after its introduction had been already ordered to a third reading 

153 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

in the Assembly and awaited its final passage there. Tammany 
Hall had issued peremptory orders that the bill should be put 
through and in the Democratic Assembly there was no disposition 
to dispute the fiat of the city organization. The Senate, being 
Republican, was somewhat less docile, but the one insurmountable 
obstacle to the passage of the Costigan bill was the opposition of 
Governor Tilden. The newspaper assailants of Mr. Green were, 
of course, furious with the Governor, and taunted him with being 
recreant to his own declared principles of home rule. The 
Times, which in spite of its opposition to Mr. Tilden, continued 
to be the stanchest supporter of Mr. Green, contributed this 
trenchant argument to the discussion of the Costigan bill: 

It may safely be said that it would be impossible to find a more outrageous 
piece of legislation in the whole category of jobs which have been fastened 
upon the city. Even the Tweed Charter left the city less obviously at the 
mercy of a gang of greedy politicians than does this amendment to the charter 
of 1873. Were Mayor Wickham as independent of Tammany Hall as he has 
been lately proved to be slavishly subject to it, the unrestricted power of 
removing heads of departments as caprice, partiality, or prejudice may dictate, 
is too absolute authority to intrust to any man. In the hands of the most 
judicious and most perfectly informed executive, it would be liable to abuse, 
and even if such an one refrained from abusing it, his successor probably 
would not. We cannot afford to continue to alter the charter to suit the 
views or the character of each succeeding Mayor. Above all, we cannot afford 
to stake on the character of any one man the vast interests confided to the 
government of a city like this. To vest the power of dismissing heads of 
departments, for any reason whatever, in the local Executive is simply to 
reduce the whole administrative organization of the government to a simple 
appanage of the Mayor's office. If the difficulties are great now in finding 
men of high character and ability to accept responsible positions under the 
City Government, the difficulties would increase tenfold under the operation 
of such a bill. No man of any social position whatever could be induced to 
accept office on the understanding that he could be sent about his business 
whenever the Mayor thought fit to yield to pique or political pressure against 
him. As a device for forming a compact Ring of city officials, the bill is per- 
fect; as a preliminary to another combined assault upon the City Treasury, 
nothing could be more appropriate. 

Even the Sun, which could hardly be classed as friendly to the 
Comptroller, was moved to say: 

We sincerely hope that this bill will be defeated, and that if it is not voted 
down in the Legislature, the Governor will smash it with his veto. It is 
contrary to good policy to put the control of political authority and of the 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

public money into the same hands. The chief financial officer of the city 
should be independent of the Mayor; and great abuses are likely to arise from 
practically making one man master of the two offices. 

Meanwhile, In response to a series of resolutions passed with 
hostile intent by the new Board of Aldermen, at its meeting on 
January 14, 1875, the Comptroller had prepared a report which 
threw confusion into the camp of his enemies. He had been 
asked to report within thirty days on the following subject: 
(i) The amount of the indebtedness of the city. (2) The 
amount of receipts from all sources during the past year, including 
the unexpended balances of former years; the interest on unpaid 
taxes and assessments; and the interest, if any, paid upon the 
deposits of the city. (3) The expenditures for the past year. 

(4) The claims in his office against the city, unadjusted. 

(5) The amount of the judgments obtained against the city during 
his term of office, with the costs taxed upon the city. (6) The 
amount saved to the city by litigation during the same period by 
decisions in its favor. (7) The amount of the bonds and stocks 
of the city, created by the authority of the State Legislature, and 
not asked for or approved by the Common Council or the Board 
of Supervisors, and the amount approved or asked for by the 
corporate authorities of this city and the late County authorities 
respectively. (8) The amount of unpaid taxes and assessments 
up to December 31, 1874, and the amount of assessment bonds 
outstanding at the same date; and (9) A balance sheet showing 
the financial position of the city at the close of the past year. 

Under the first head of the inquiry, the Comptroller reported 
that the bonded debt of the city as it existed December 31, 1874, 
was, without deducting securities held by the sinking fund, 
$141,803,758. This showed a gross increase In three years of 
$33,252,049. In the three years preceding 1871, the bonded debt 
had grown from $52,205,430 to $108,551,708, being an increase of 
$56,346,278. Mr. Green pointed out that the old claims and 
liabilities existing when he took office, the extraordinary demand 
on account of the deficiency of the State sinking fund, and the 
money paid by him for boulevards and other uptown improve- 
ments, all of which had been met by the issue of bonds, aggre- 
gated more than the whole increase of the bonded debt of the city 

155 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

during the present administration of the Finance Department. 
In deaUng with the unadjusted claims in the Comptroller's office, 
Mr. Green made a summary which he pointed out had no refer- 
ence to the legality of the claims and which included unsettled 
accounts and demands accumulated for years. He insisted that 
these old unliquidated claims had been improperly spoken of as so 
much city debt, whereas many of them were exorbitant or fraudu- 
lent, or wholly fictitious, and not to be considered as indebtedness 
of the city except to a possibly limited amount. The Comptroller 
would not recognize many of them, even by stating them, were 
it not that the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen seemed to 
desire that they should be recapitulated and stated in detail. 
He recognized that the effect of the schedule which he submitted 
might be to stimulate and incite claimants to renewed attacks 
upon the treasury, and more strenuous efforts on behalf of their 
schemes, and he protested against this recital of them being tor- 
tured or twisted into any, even the faintest, recognition of their 
validity. 

Mr. Green illustrated the general character of hundreds of 
claims with which the Finance Department had to deal, by a brief 
reference to a few examples. Among these was the claim amount- 
ing with interest to ^1,000,000, for water-meters, not used, but 
alleged to have been furnished to the city under a special contract 
with William M. Tweed, Commissioner of Public Works, at most 
exorbitant rates; claims for printing and stationery said to have 
been furnished between 1868 and 1871 amounting to ^1,125,610, 
although during the same period the same parties had been paid 
nearly one million dollars for the same kind of supplies, and a 
claim for unearned or prospective profits on the old Hackley 
street-cleaning contract, amounting to ^800,000. Another class 
of claims, though small in amount, was the cause of infinite 
trouble to the Comptroller. They consisted of the demands of 
political partisans and strikers, claiming to have been employed 
as attendants and officers of the courts, and incumbents of various 
sinecure places invented to reward inferior political ward-workers. 
Mr. Green instanced the fact that there were at the date of his 
report three janitors in one court building, each claiming his 
appointment from a different source, and each claiming his pay 

156 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

from the city, although one person was entirely sufficient for the 
service. Mr. Green had very little patience with the toleration 
exhibited by the courts for this class of claimants. The English 
precedents in virtue of which they frequently secured a judgment 
against the city, were founded on the practice of the British 
Government of creating offices, not necessarily involving any 
actual work, as a reward for distinguished civil or military service. 
When questions arose in the courts as to the right of the descend- 
ants of the original beneficiaries to these emoluments, the prin- 
ciple was laid down that the holder of an office of this character 
need not render any contemporaneous service whatever. He had 
already rendered the service and was entitled to the reward. It 
was somewhat of a novelty to have this judicial ruling quoted in 
support of the principle that a city officer or placeholder is en- 
titled to the salary while he holds the place, whether he renders 
any service or not. Most people must have sympathized with the 
difficulty experienced by jurors in seeing why they should, at 
the direction of a court, give a verdict against the city to a scaven- 
ger, or janitor, or court attendant, or record translator, who had 
done no service, simply because some pensioner, a century or more 
since, could hold a sinecure under the British Crown, as a reward 
for high services rendered. 

In the unadjusted claims against the city, there were taxed 
costs in street-opening cases amounting to ^602,503, flagrantly 
and grossly disproportionate to the services said to have been 
rendered; there were claims for Ring advertising amounting to 
$896,458, of which one claim for advertising in three obscure 
papers reached the sum of $365,000; there were seventy-four 
claims of Mayor Fernando Wood's municipal policemen for a term 
of three years during which though doing nothing, they claimed 
the right to draw their salaries; and there were claims for awards 
in street-opening proceedings amounting to $1,746,400, demon- 
strably extravagant in amount, but which, having been confirmed 
by the Supreme Court, had to be paid. Referring to the clamor 
against the Finance Department, gotten up by holders of fraudu- 
lent claims, and fostered by unprincipled newspapers, on the 
charge of delay in the adjustment and payment of bills,' the Comp- 
troller showed that the average time during 1874, for passing 

157 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

through the department from the date of receipt to the date of 
payment, Including all classes of claims and liabilities for contracts 
and supplies, was less than four days. Mr. Green was able to 
state, with all possible emphasis, that the current claims for which 
value had been given to the city, were and had been recognized 
and promptly liquidated. The other class of claims for which 
no value had been given, were, in Mr. Green's own words, 
"conceived In the lobby and are held and promoted by that dis- 
reputable class who are enabled by craft and cunning to live with- 
out labor, out of the earnings of honest and industrious men, have 
no foundation either in justice or In equity. The courts ought to 
find some ground for discrimination against them, and every 
agency of the government should be prompt to Intercept their 
progress to the door of the treasury and to defeat and frustrate 
them." 

There was a sensible weakening of the journalistic attacks upon 
the Comptroller, after he had made this very thorough presen- 
tation of his case to the people of New York. But throughout the 
whole course of the Legislative session of 1875, the efforts to 
neutralize the work of the Comptroller continued unabated. It 
was at the Instance of the new "boss" of Tammany Hall, John 
Kelly, that the Costigan bill had been introduced in the Assembly. 
When the Senate refused to endorse that measure, Mr. Kelly 
put through the Assembly a series of bills designed to furnish 
employment for Tammany henchmen without any effective 
supervision from the Finance Department. While nobody Im- 
peached Mr. Kelly's personal honesty, there was undoubted 
justice in the comment of the Times on the work of the "boss 
legislator": "Had the Kelly bills passed by the last Assembly 
been allowed to become law, the government of this city would 
have been transformed into a kind of commune, in which the 
supporters of John Kelly would have been quartered upon the 
public treasury, and by which the ruin of half the property 
owners In the city would have been very speedily effected." 

In the election of November, 1875, the Tammany ticket for 
Recorder, District-Attorney, and other officers met with signal 
defeat. It Is hardly open to question that one of the causes of 
the rejection of Mr. Kelly's nominees was the attitude of opposi- 

158 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

tion which he assumed toward Governor Tilden, and the tactics 
which his representative in the Mayor's chair employed to harass 
and annoy Comptroller Green. In any case the election had the 
good result of showing the political futility of such tactics, and 
Mr. Green was allowed to serve out the remainder of his term in 
comparative freedom from the nagging and obstruction to 
which he had become accustomed from his associates in the city 
government. Even the bitterest assailant of Mr. Green in the 
reputable portion of the press, the New York Herald, was con- 
strained to admit that he had kept the thieves at bay, and had 
saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars by his policy of 
fighting every unjust claim. In nominating Mr. Green for Mayor 
in 1876 the Herald declared that he would not be the slave of 
Kelly, nor of any one else. In the latter part of July, and in 
August, 1876, several newspapers urged Mr. Green to become a 
candidate for Governor of the State or for Mayor of New York. 
The New York Herald said editorially: "There is a movement 
in certain Democratic circles to nominate Mr. Green for Governor. 
It is said that Mr. Tilden, who was formerly in business with Mr. 
Green, is anxious to have him on the ticket. We have a high 
esteem for Mr. Green, and would like him to succeed Mr. Wick- 
ham as Mayor. His place is in the government of the city. 
We are more interested in that than in the State or Nation. To 
take a man like Andrew H. Green, who knows the city well, who 
has been standing at the doors of the treasury fighting the thieves 
for years, and transplant him to Albany or Washington is to make 
a serious blunder. It is much better to keep Mr. Green in the 
city where he has been useful for many years, and where he may 
be useful in the future. Let the friends of Green support him 
for Mayor." Another journal observed: "Comptroller Green's 
name is mentioned, as he represents with Governor Tilden him- 
self the very issues upon which the Democratic party expects to 
sweep the country for retrenchment and reform. The friends of 
Mr. Green, therefore, claim that he would be the best man to 
place on the ticket with the Presidential candidate who sails right 
into the sea of political corruption with the motto: 'Let no 
guilty man escape!' " Mr. Green was earnestly urged for Mayor 
by many leading and substantial citizens, as well as by represen- 

159 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

tative workingmen, and had he been willing to accept the nomi- 
nations offered he would probably have stood a fair chance of 
election, notwithstanding John Kelly's opposition. Mr. Green, 
however, did not desire to be a candidate while Mr. Tilden was in 
the field for President, as he apprehended that hostility to himself 
might possibly cause the loss of some votes to Mr. Tilden. 

Mr. Green's term as Comptroller ended in November, 1876, but 
he held over until Mr. John Kelly was appointed to the office in 
December 7, 1876, following. On the same day he issued a state- 
ment addressed to several prominent citizens, setting forth in 
brief what had been accomplished while he controlled the Finance 
Department. The statement is reproduced in full in the appen- 
dix, and the following is a condensed summary of the figures it 
contains: On September 16, 1871, when Mr. Green entered the 
Comptroller's office, the funded debt of the city (less the sinking 
fund applicable to its payment) and the floating debt together 
amounted to ^83,735,476. On November, 20, 1876, the funded 
and floating debts aggregated $93,602,375. The increase had 
been only $9,866,899, although within that period the city had 
added to its permanent assets land and improvements costing 
$29,223,868. During the same five years the sinking fund had 
been increased by the amount of $9,863,404. The amount ex- 
pended annually for printing and stationery had been reduced 
from $1,018,958 in 1871 to $157,741 in 1876; the amount 
for city and county advertising was reduced from $1,093,369 
to $48,510, and the amount paid for gas from over $1,000,000 to 
$620,466. 

To the persistent accusation of his enemies that Mr. Green's 
policy involved the city in costly litigation, there was made a most 
conclusive reply, and the document ends with this very character- 
istic statement: 

"I found the city like a great field, in which ranging herds, 
tossing the golden sheaves, have left their bestial hoofmarks upon 
every rood of its fertile glebe. I found the city like an estate 
which its easy-going owner had left to the neglect of heedless 
bailifi"s and stewards; its mansions dilapidated, its gardens over- 
grown, its orchards exhausted, its forests dismantled, its rents 

160 



OF ANDREW HA SWELL GREEN 



uncollected, its crops ungarnered, and riot and ruin wasting its 
every feature and every interest. It may, in moderation, be 
asserted that something has been effected to restore order and 
system in its financial affairs, to economize expenditures, and to 
lift its administration out of the utter degradation into which it 
had fallen." 



i6i 



CHAPTER XIV 

REVIEW OF FIVE YEARS OF ARDUOUS PUBLIC SERVICE COM- 
PLICITY OF REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS IN THE CITy's 

MISGOVERNMENT A REFORM OF EXORBITANT GAS 

BILLS SYSTEMATIC AND FRAUDULENT VACATION 

OF ASSESSMENTS THE FIGHT AGAINST THE 

LOBBYISTS AND THEIR ALLIES AT ALBANY 

A LUMINOUS PRESENTATION OF 

MUNICIPAL NEEDS OF NEW YORK 

THE five years' Incumbency of the office of Comptroller 
by Andrew H. Green marked a turning point in the 
history of the New York city government. It is true 
that the awakening of public conscience which followed the 
exposure of the Ring frauds in the fall of 1871 seemed to lack 
enduring vitality, and that the municipal administration showed 
a stubborn tendency to settle back into the old ruts of incom- 
petency and corruption. The base alliance between the pro- 
fessional politicians of the two great parties for the division of 
the spoils of the city was renewed almost as soon as it was 
broken, and venal, or merely subservient, legislators were ready 
to give effect to the bargains which were struck between Tam- 
many Hall and the Republican machine. But the political 
traders were less shameless, less openly defiant of all moral 
restraints than they had been. They showed a disposition 
to shelter themselves behind pretences of administrative co- 
ordination; of a desire to give equitable recognition to claims 
which lacked only technical regularity, and of the expediency 
of removing obstacles to the prosecution of public improvements. 
The nomination of Mr. Tilden as Governor, in the fall of 1874, 
was a tribute to the strength of the new forces that were making 
themselves felt in party politics, and his election was a proof 
that the moral sense of the community had acquired a vigor 
unknown for years. It was to this sense that Mr. Tilden made 

162 



ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

his appeal in his successful attack on the powerfully intrenched 
Canal Ring in 1875, and the result of the presidential election 
of 1876 showed how keen was the appreciation among the mass 
of voters of his work of administrative reform. 

That Mr. Green should have been able during four years 
of his term to withstand the envenomed and unscrupulous 
misrepresentation of a large portion of the New York press, 
the bitter and persistent hostility of the politicians of both 
parties, and the swelling chorus of strident and angry protest 
from the horde of disappointed claimants argued the existence 
of a public opinion behind him that had a fairly just appreciation 
of the value of what he was doing for the city. Even his indom- 
itable resolution, his superb patience, and his clear-sighted 
intelligence would not of themselves have kept him where he 
was, but for the public conscience which had been stimulated 
to new activity and of which he was the one consistent and 
faithful vehicle of expression. 

The Tweed Ring was the natural result of a process of evolu- 
tion of political methods that had been steadily going from 
bad to worse. In the city government, as Mr. Green left it, 
there were at least the beginnings of new standards of public 
responsibility, and new conceptions of civic virtue, that in 
spite of manifold disappointments and reverses have, in the 
last thirty-seven years, grown from more to more. No sharper 
contrast can be found in all the history of New York than that 
which existed between the five years preceding Mr. Green's 
accession to the head of the Finance Department and those 
in which it was under his control. Nobody will dispute the 
contemporary statement that "the history of New York during 
the years 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, and down to the middle of 
1 87 1, ought to suffuse the cheek of every American citizen 
with the blush of shame." Convincing demonstration had been 
obtained of the cohesive power of public plunder, and the Ring 
was maintained by the open conversion of public revenues 
to private or partisan uses. Thus, though Its rascality was but 
slightly concealed from external view, the Ring soon became 
absolute master of the city; it named the incumbents of municipal 
offices from the highest to the lowest, and left to the public 

163 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

voice merely the empty form of ratifying its nominations. 
It was able to use its undisputed ability to extend and perpetuate 
its power by debauching the public conscience. Men who had 
been ushers at minstrel shows were made State Senators, and 
the keepers of disreputable saloons were made into legislators 
for the great State of New York. Some of the meanest political 
tricksters which the system had produced sat on the bench 
of the police courts, and a man who had been brought from a dis- 
tant State to answer for a felony was made auditor of the public 
accounts. 

But perhaps the most deplorable fact of all was that there 
was scarcely a protest against all this organized iniquity, in 
spite of the general conviction that the government was based 
upon robbery. Prominent citizens of all shades of political 
opinion took office under the Ring, and there were apparently 
men of good repute whom ten thousand dollars a year could 
induce to become the apologists or defenders of a notorious 
combination of thieves. The general public had at least this 
excuse for their passive toleration of the methods of the Ring, 
that, however strong might be the presumption that their rulers 
were criminals, no absolute proof of their guilt was forthcoming. 
The local authorities were either members of the Ring or its 
abject tools, and at Albany the Ring was as firmly intrenched 
as in New York. The Fourth of July, 1870, saw the features 
of Boss Tweed delineated in a magnificent piece of pyrotechnics 
against the evening sky. He was hailed as the coming Governor, 
and flatterers even ventured to hint that his transcendent 
abilities could find a fitting place for their exercise only at the 
head of the government of the nation. Opposition within 
the Democratic party was generally disarmed by an offer to 
share the spoils, and when public distrust and suspicion could 
no longer be safely met with indifi"erence and defiance, the Ring 
was ready with an invitation to some of the leading financiers 
of the city to examine the books of the Finance Department. 
From a bookkeeping point of view, the records were correctly 
enough kept, and, obviously, without testing the character 
of the claims whose payments they recorded, there could be 
deduced from their contents no evidence of fraud. The eminent 

164 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

business men who undertook the work of examination fell into 
the trap prepared for them, and gave Comptroller Connolly, 
and incidentally his associates of the Ring, the following cer- 
tificate : 

We certify that, at the request of the Hon. Richard B. Connolly, Comptroller 
of the City of New York, we have made an examination of the affairs of the 
Finance Department and Sinking Fund of said city; that the entire office 
was thrown open to us, and all the account books, securities and records of 
the said department and Sinking Fund were submitted to our inspection and 
examination. . . . And we further certify that the account books of 
the department are faithfully kept; that we have personally examined the 
securities of the department and Sinking Fund, and find them correct. We 
have come to the conclusion and certify that the financial affairs of the city, 
under the charge of the Comptroller, are administered in a correct and faithful 
manner. 

Dated New York, November i, 1870. 

(Signed) Moses Taylor, 

E. D. Brown, 

J. J. ASTOR, 

George K. Sistare, 
Edward Schell, 
Marshall O. Roberts. 

These names represent the foremost financial interests of 
their time, and no group of men could have been selected more 
likely to command the confidence of the people of New York. 
Yet, at the very time they certified to the correctness of the 
Comptroller's books, those records contained the evidence of 
direct thefts amounting to about twelve millions of dollars, 
while the testimony they bore to indirect stealing was equivalent 
to many millions more. 

Entering the Comptroller's office without pledge or obligation, 
save to his own conscience, and to the Constitution and laws 
he bound himself to maintain, Mr. Green found, as has been 
already noted, that the tax levy of 1871 was entirely exhausted, 
the accounts overdrawn, and that no provision had been made 
to meet either the revenue bonds of the city, then rapidly matur- 
ing, or the salaries of thousands of employees on the city pay- 
rolls. Every dollar had been extracted from the treasury before 
tiie collapse; the city had virtually suspended payment; its 
credit had been fatally weakened, and, had no change of adminis- 

165 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

tration been effected, municipal business must necessarily have 
been brought to a standstill. 

The work of investigation, which brought down on the head 
of Comptroller Green the wrath of every dishonest creditor of 
the city, necessarily went hand in hand with the work of recon- 
struction. Of course, the practices which were brought to 
light did not all partake of the character of downright robbery, 
but there were long sanctioned abuses of public confidence 
which were only less open to censure and hardly less costly. 
For example, it had become a conviction that the lighting of the 
public streets was to be paid for at higher rates than those 
which the gas companies exacted from private customers. The 
companies, it appeared, charged for the lighting of 18,397 street 
lamps, burning during ten months of 1871, $841,036.41. The 
Comptroller directed that the city be divided into districts, 
and every lamp counted from Kingsbridge to the Battery. The 
result was that a difference of 235 was found between the number 
existing and the number charged. It was also reported that 
339 private lamps lighted at public expense were found decorating 
the house fronts of prominent politicians, adorning the entrance 
to political clubs, hotels, saloons, and oyster houses, while others 
were used to advertise quack medicines and places of amusement. 
Mr. Green contended that the lighting of these lamps was 
a fraud upon the city, and that, although the authority to use 
them for private purposes was in most cases derived from the 
action of the Common Council, the gas companies themselves 
had a responsibility in the matter which they should not have 
shirked. The examiners also ascertained the quantity of gas 
consumed by each street lamp. Taking the rate at which the 
several companies charged their private consumers as a standard 
for the city's consumption, a reduction was effected on the bills 
for lighting the streets and parks of $237,234.44. 

All the gas companies except one — the Manhattan — accepted 
Mr. Green's terms, and this latter brought suit to obtain through 
the courts the amount originally claimed. On trial of the case 
the court allowed the company $45 per lamp, instead of $53, and 
the sum of $63,000 was thus saved to the city. Mr. Green 
made the following reference to this subject In the report which 

166 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



he made in response to the resolutions of the Board of Aldermen 
on February i8, 1875: "It is quite natural that the shareholders 
in these gas companies who have been in the habit of receiving 
from 30 to 50 per cent, per annum in dividends should consider 
the Comptroller an obstructionist. I presume, however, tax- 
payers will not object to the sort of obstruction which has effected 
a reduction in the cost of lighting the streets of the city, as 
shown by the following comparison of prices charged per lamp 
as between 1871 and 1874: 



Company- 
Manhattan Gaslight Co. . 
New York .... 
Metropolitan .... 
Harlem ..... 


1871 

45 
S3 
S3 


1874 

^33 

33 

39 

39 


N. Y. Mutual 




3S 



In 1 87 1 the cost of gas to the city was about one million 
dollars; in 1874 it was less than two thirds of that amount. 

Nor should it be forgotten that the struggle in Albany against 
the forces of misgovernment, extravagance, and corruption was 
quite as strenuous as it was in New York. It required all the 
shrewdness, courage, and determination which could be supplied 
not only on the part of Mr. Green, but by Mr. Tilden, Mayor 
Havemeyer, Governor Dix and other leaders in the cause of 
good government to defeat the schemes of the combination 
of able counsel, a skilled lobby, and legislators hungry for bribes 
to impose new burdens on the taxpayers of New York for the 
benefit of the special interests who were ready to pay them. 
An act for which Comptroller Green was bitterly and persistently 
assailed by the organs of disappointed claimants for favorable 
legislation was his appointment of Mr. Dexter A. Hawkins 
to act as counsel before the Legislature in the winter and spring 
of 1873 in regard to certain bills affecting the debt, the taxes 
and the liabilities of the city and county of New York. The 
retaining of Mr. Hawkins was entirely in accordance with Section 
40 of the Charter of 1870, and an appropriation had previously 
been made for such employment of counsel outside the official 
organization of the Law Department of the city. The results 
more than justified the expenditure. 

167 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Tweed rule in Albany had left a deficit in the State Treasury 
of ^6,6oo,ocxD, of which the City of New York was called upon 
to raise by tax in 1873 over $3,8cxd,ooo, unless other provision 
should be made for meeting the deficit until the State could pro- 
vide the means of raising the money. The Comptroller's plan 
was so to legislate that the State at large should be required 
to make up this deficit instead of throwing it at once upon the 
city. Since the raising of over a million and a half dollars 
to pay a part of the cost of sinking the Harlem Railroad tracks 
could readily be deferred, and since it was possible to save three 
millions by revision of the tax levy which had been fixed under 
Mayor Hall, it was entirely possible to reduce the taxes of 1873 
by at least six millions of dollars, and an act, prepared under 
instructions from Comptroller Green was passed for that pur- 
pose. But the interests which the Comptroller represented, 
although they were those of the public at large, had a host of 
enemies in the Legislature, and it was eminently necessary that 
the information needed for their advocacy should be promptly 
at the disposal of men who had no sinister purposes to serve 
at Albany. Then, on March i, 1873, assessments amounting 
to over five millions of dollars for Riverside Park had to be 
paid so that the city might redeem the bonds issued to pay 
for the land. Some property owners had turned in their share, 
but others, who owed ^3,000,000 of assessments, asked from the 
Legislature a stay law allowing them to keep the money for 
another three years by paying interest at 7 per cent., instead 
of the 12 per cent, imposed by existing law. Back of this 
proceeding, there was the expectation that the delay might 
enable the property owners to discover some flaw in the pro- 
ceedings and have the assessments vacated. As money was 
then worth about 7 per cent., the delay would have involved 
practically no risk of loss to those taking advantage of it, while 
the city would have had to pay from the proceeds of general 
taxation the bonds falling due for the improvement. The bill 
which was drawn to effect this result passed the Assembly 
without objection, but Mr. Hawkins, instructed by Mr. Green, 
went before the Senate committee, explained the real intent 
and effect of the bill, and caused its defeat. The city was thus 

168 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

saved from a certain loss of $75,000 of interest, and a possible 
loss of a large proportion of the $3,000,000 of principal. The 
fate of the newspaper claims bill has already been referred to, and 
its defeat which involved a saving to the city of least at $1,500,000 
was largely due to the strenuous efforts which Mr. Hawkins 
made on behalf of the Comptroller, with the assistance of men 
in both houses who could neither be bullied nor bribed, to delay 
the bill until the end of the session. 

But perhaps the most impudent of all the legislative "strikes" 
which were defeated through the efforts of the Comptroller's 
representative at Albany, appeared in the form of an innocent 
looking bill dealing with local improvements. When it emerged 
from the Assembly committee, everything was changed but its 
title, and the bill proved to be an attempt to legalize a long list 
of the old Tweed Ring wooden pavement ordinances of the Com- 
mon Council and contracts already condemned by the courts, 
with a special provision for forcing the money out of the treasury 
by writ of mandamus as fast as bonds could be sold to raise it. 
Twenty miles of streets were covered by this proposed act, 
and contracts were authorized to be awarded without publicity 
or competition. So skilfully was it drawn that none save an 
expert in city affairs could suspect that it could cost the city 
at least $3,000,000. All the influence and craft of the lobby 
was behind it, and it went through the Assembly late one evening 
without reading or debate, most members supposing that it 
was a bill they had already examined, for which this particular 
measure had been substituted. The next morning it was taken 
up in the Senate, out of its order, and the chairman of the 
Senate committee on Cities attempted to force it through that 
body before its true character could be discovered. Instructed 
by Comptroller Green, Mr. Hawkins directed attention to the 
true purpose of this iniquitous bill, and after a severe struggle 
in the Assembly, the bill was recalled by the Speaker. It was 
stated by one of the lobby that $250,000 could be commanded 
if need be to secure the passage of the bill, and it again passed 
the Assembly, notwithstanding the proofs of its true character 
and objects which were submitted on behalf of Comptroller 
Green. Then the fight was renewed in the Senate, the agents 

169 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



of corruption pushing the measure with absolute shamelessness 
and sheer desperation, while the friends of honest Government 
presented a determined opposition. The fact that the bill 
was defeated in the Senate by only one vote showed the strength 
of the influences against which Mr. Green and his friends 
triumphed, and in spite of which at least three millions were 
saved to the city. 

The Albany lobby was also interested in the promotion of a 
bill to take $2,500,000 out of the city treasury, and invest it in 
the capital stock of an exhibition company, where it could 
have easily been wiped out by the foreclosure of a mortgage. 
This proposal was defeated mainly through the efforts of the 
Comptroller. Still another raid on the city treasury which was 
rendered futile by the efforts of Mr. Green and Mr. Hawkins 
took the form of an amendment to the deficiency bill that would 
compel the payment of between one and two millions of old 
Ring claims for stationery and similar supplies which, with 
little or no real warrant, had been charged to the city. Balked 
of their expected booty, jobbers, lobbyists and corrupt legislators 
sought to avenge themselves by obstructing measures necessary 
for the welfare of this city, and introduced at the instance of 
the Comptroller. Fortunately, as little came of these tactics 
as had come from the attempted raids on the city treasury, 
and the session closed with a satisfactory balance on the side 
of the interests which Comptroller Green had to defend. 

As has been already pointed out, the movement in favor of 
administrative reform which swept the state in 1874, was a 
natural sequel to the uprising against the Tweed Ring in the 
fall of 1 87 1. When Mr. Tilden's discomfiture of the Canal 
Ring and the unbending integrity of his administration as 
governor made him the logical candidate of his party for Presi- 
dent in 1876, it seemed as if the forces of reform were once more 
in the ascendant. One indication of this was found in the fact 
that very early in the Legislative session of 1876 the Assembly 
passed a resolution requesting Comptroller Green to furnish 
it with facts and recommendations calculated to facilitate a 
reduction of the municipal expenses of the City of New York. 
In replying to this request, in a document dated February 23, 

170 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

1876, Mr. Green said that he had devoted as much time as the 
requirements of current business would permit to a study of the 
subject of a somewhat more comprehensive kind than the 
resolution called for. He had done so because, in his judgment 
the designation of individual cases of extravagant compensation 
and expenditure would fail to reach the objects proposed. He 
pointed out that a consideration of the distribution of the powers 
of city administration was almost indispensable to an appre- 
ciation of the real needs of the municipality if the spirit of the 
Assembly resolutions were to be complied with. The great 
political and property interests of the City of New York are 
committed to the management of a corporation which acts 
through its agents under divers names. Its powers, duties, and 
functions, broad, varied and responsible, are exercised by execu- 
tive and legislative agents or officials. These powers are, for 
the most part, executive, having for their object the transac- 
tion of business in which the community is concerned; and, like 
any other business, its successful conduct requires honesty, 
good judgment, and experience. 

As a fundamental proposition, Mr. Green went on to say 
that the city wants agents who will attend to its business 
faithfully; who will promote and defend its interests, study its 
needs, foster its development, attend to the convenience of its 
people, devise the least oppressive sources of revenue, harvest 
and protect those revenues and lessen taxes and debts. It 
does not want agents who seek to enrich themselves at the ex- 
pense of the treasury they are paid to protect — quartering 
their relatives upon the taxpayers, or pushing their selfish 
political schemes, regardless of the city's welfare. The city 
cannot long exist with every man's hand against its treasury. 
It must find somewhere, resolute defenders. Whatever of 
public esteem comes from long, faithful and self-denying public 
service, is the object of legitimate and proper ambition, and 
from this source should officials expect their chief recompense. 

Passing from this counsel of perfection to a consideration 
of existing conditions, Mr. Green said it was undeniable that 
multitudes of the retainers of well-known political organizations 
had been billeted for years upon the treasury of the city. It was 

171 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

equally well known that their influence had been most demoral- 
izing in its eff"ect upon the public service. He held it to be 
certain that as soon as enough of these retainers were cudgeled 
from their accustomed source of nutriment the organizations 
they served must fall to pieces. These organizations had 
overawed and influenced the entire official activity of the city; 
their creatures had been elevated to conspicuous judicial, legis- 
lative and executive office whose occupancy they had put to 
nefarious uses. Appointments were demanded at the insulting 
dictation of political bosses and committees whose rule was 
perpetuated and sustained by assessments on the compensation 
of the officials whose appointments they were instrumental in 
securing. One way to facilitate the reduction of municipal 
salaries was to abate all such influences and agencies. 

In considering the subject of the compensation of those 
employed in the public service, Mr. Green held that these 
fundamental principles should be recognized: (i) That every 
officer and employee should be paid, as compensation in full 
a fixed specific sum, and only in special cases be allowed to 
appropriate to his own use any fees, perquisites, commissions 
or extra emoluments whatever for the performance of any duty 
or service connected with his office. (2) That where any fees, 
fines, penalties, percentages, commissions or payment whatever 
are made to any officer or employee of the city government, 
or attached to the courts, they should be first accounted for 
and paid directly into the city treasury, even in those cases 
where the officer is authorized ultimately to receive the fees. 
This is essential to insure systematic, correct and complete 
accounts. Without this, it would be impossible to present 
clear, full, and intelligent statements of the transactions of the 
city at the end of the year, or to determine who was overpayed 
at the expense of the people, and how much. It would also be 
a valuable aid to the detection and prevention of efforts at 
bribery and fraud. 

Any one at all familiar with the municipal legislation of the 
last thirty years, will recognize how clearly Mr. Green outlined 
reforms which have been slowly extorted from the legislature 
in the teeth of the opposition of the professional politicians. 

172 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

The evils of political place-holding are very far from being 
extirpated, but it is safe to say that the struggle which has been 
made against them would have been much less efTectual but 
for the initiative of Andrew H. Green. The New York with 
which he had to deal as Comptroller was a very different city 
from that which he first served as Commissioner of Education. 
Within fifteen years the cost of its government had grown from 
$10,140,358 to $34,904,395. Within that period the population 
had grown about 25 per cent., and while it was natural that 
municipal expenses should increase, an increase of 350 per 
cent, was clearly abnormal. The immense increase of expendi- 
ture in so short a period had a partial justification in the en- 
hanced values occasioned by the war and the consequent lessening 
of the purchasing power of a dollar. A large portion of it, 
as Mr. Green pointed out was, however, fairly attributable to 
the extravagance, waste, and dishonesty consequent upon politi- 
cal organizations formed by the combination of persons who 
make politics and place-getting a trade, to the weakening and 
crippling of all honest administration. 

This document was the last analysis which Mr. Green had 
occasion to make of the business activities of the city government, 
and slight as its Immediate results appear to have been. It 
remained at least as guide for succeeding reformers and a model 
of candid and fearless treatment of a subject which had been 
long obscured by considerations entirely foreign to the interests 
of the people of New York which, In theory at least, it was the 
primary duty of the city government to conserve. 



173 



CHAPTER XV 

THE WIDE SCOPE OF MR. GREEn's POLICY OF PUBLIC IMPROVE- 
MENT BEGINNING OF THE PROCESS OF MUNICIPAL 

CONSOLIDATION THE EARLY MOVEMENT FOR A 

GREATER NEW YORK MR. GREEn's PIONEER 

WORK THE COMMISSION OF 189O 

DISARMING THE OPPOSITION 
OF BROOKLYN 

IN THE midst of the engrossing responsibilities and unceasing 
worry of the Comptroller's office, Mr. Green never lost 
sight of the subject that was nearest to his heart — the 
plans which as Comptroller of Central Park he had worked 
out for the congruous development of the public improve- 
ments of the city, present and future. He retained his 
place on the Park Board after his acceptance of the position 
of Deputy-Comptroller, and on the retirement of Peter B. 
Sweeny and Henry Hilton, and the appointment of Henry G. 
Stebbins and Frederick E. Church in their places, he and Mr. 
Stebbins set about the work of reorganizing the Board and 
restoring the methods of administration which had been so 
fatally interrupted during the period of Ring rule. Reorganiza- 
tion was duly effected at a meeting held on November 23, 1871, 
at which Mr. Green was elected treasurer. This honor he 
declined, but continued to hold the position of Park Commis- 
sioner until May i, 1873. After his official connection with 
the Board had terminated, he was the active promoter and 
organizer of the movement which brought into existence in 
their present forms the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the 
Museum of Natural History, and the Zoological Gardens. 

In September, 1874, Mr. Green addressed a communication 
to Mr. William A. Booth and others setting forth at some length 
his position in regard to public improvements in the City of 
New York. He began by a reference to the removal of the 

174 



ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

Central Park Commissioners from office under the Charter 
of 1870 and the transfer to the Ring of the management of all 
the works that this commission had planned and fostered, and 
which up to the time of its transfer, had been kept free from the 
malign influences that controlled the rest of the city government. 
For the succeeding eighteen months, under Sweeny, Hilton, and 
Fields, with their subordinates, these works had been carried on 
according to the same demoralized methods which characterized 
the conduct of all other public improvements in the city. He 
recalled the fact that when he took office as Comptroller, the 
schemes of plunder which had been grafted on the works planned 
by the Park Commissioners were just about ripening, and it 
fell to his lot to provide the funds for what were originally 
beneficial projects but which in Ring hands had been made 
the occasion of extravagance and jobbery. When the work of 
the old Park Board was, in 1871, taken away from the Ring 
and restored to the hands of some of its original members, no 
time was lost by the schemers of the local party machines who 
still controlled the Legislature, in stripping them of a very large 
portion of their powers for the benefit of the Department of 
Public Works. By a clause surreptitiously inserted in a bill 
introduced into the Legislature of 1872, under a title referring 
to the conduct of work in connection with the Croton Water 
Bureau, the Department of Parks was suddenly deprived of 
all control over the avenues and boulevards above Fifty-ninth 
Street, and powers of a deliberative and legislative character 
which were involved in that control were transferred from a 
Board composed of intelligent and able men to one individual 
who was entirely without experience in such affairs, and whose 
exercise of such authority was directly contrary both to the 
spirit of the law and the interests of the community. 

The communication referred to went on to discuss what are 
the demands of an enlightened public policy in the future. Mr. 
Green found it hardly necessary to state that he was then and 
always had been in favor of the prosecution of public improve- 
ments, when they could be carried out with proper economy 
and were clearly necessary for public convenience and comfort. 
He recited as subjects which had engaged his study and advocacy 

175 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

during many years of public life, the devising of a plan for laying 
out the upper part of the city, and its development in harmony 
with that of the lower part of Westchester County, the improve- 
ment of the navigation of Harlem River, the fixing of bulkhead 
lines round half the island, and the question of connecting the 
city, by tunnels and bridges, with Westchester on one side and 
Long Island on the other. 

Very early in his connection with the old Park Board, Mr. 
Green became impressed with the necessity of projecting public 
improvements with reference to the needs of a much larger city 
than that which could be confined to Manhattan Island. On 
December 30, 1868, he made a voluminous report on the general 
subject, and pointed out that the ancient boundaries of the 
City of New York extend to low-water mark on its opposite 
and surrounding shores, thus giving the municipality territorial 
jurisdiction over the adjacent rivers. But serious disputes had 
arisen with the State of New Jersey over the exercise of this 
authority, and much trouble had arisen with Brooklyn in regard 
to jurisdiction at her wharves and the control of the ferries to 
Long Island. It was quite clear to his mind that the laying 
out of roads and bridges, and the apportioning of expenditures 
for great works built in the interest of both counties and of the 
whole public should be taken out of the petty squabbles of 
smaller jurisdictions, and left to the determination of somebody 
endowed with comprehensive powers and capable of dealing 
with these subjects, not in the interest of New York or of West- 
chester alone, but in that of both, and of the convenience of the 
entire public. The inconveniences arising from the existing 
diversity of legislative, judicial and executive functions, and of 
officers that had a patched and piecemeal jurisdiction over diverse 
portions of the territory that might roughly be classed as metro- 
politan, had led to the extension of the powers of the Police 
and Health Board, not only over New York and Westchester, 
but over Kings and Richmond counties, although at the different 
ends of every bridge then existing over the Harlem, the police 
were required to enforce different excise regulations. 

By 1874 the incorporation of the lower part of Westchester 
County, which formed an essential part of the plans of the first 

176 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

Board of Commissioners of Central Park, was an accomplished 
fact. By this first step toward consolidation, there were added 
to the 14,000 acres of the city below the Harlem River, 12,000 
acres above it. Mr. Green strenuously contended that such 
a connection was designed to exist otherwise than on paper. 
But while eight broad avenues had been worked to the Harlem 
River, the means of crossing it to the new part of the city had, 
at the date of his communication to Mr. Booth failed to receive 
attention. A distance of one mile and a half separated the 
Third Avenue Bridge from the next bridge to it at McComb's 
Dam; from this to the next, the Farmer's Bridge — a distance 
of three miles — there was no provision whatever for carriage- 
crossing. The Third Avenue Bridge, a structure erected at 
great cost, was already falling out of repair, and the draw was 
worked with great difficulty. The bridge at McComb's Dam, 
daily required to carry an enormous travel and traffic, was 
rapidly becoming more unsafe, and would not last until another 
structure could be provided to take its place. The elevated 
ground between the high service water tower and Fort George 
remained as inaccessible from Westchester County as it was 
when De Witt Clinton and his colleagues thought the planting 
of human habitations on these rugged slopes a dream which it 
would take centuries to realize. 

Mr. Green never wearied in reminding his fellow-citizens 
that no populous district of this continent presented such a com- 
bination of natural beauties as was to be found around Manhattan 
Island and its adjacent shores. He held that to link these 
together, to make them easy of access, and to place them in such 
a setting as may best befit them, is a work no less worthy of the 
highest ability which can be pressed into the public service 
than the proper development of New York's unrivaled facilities 
for commercial intercourse. 

He reiterated in 1874 the belief that he had expressed, eight 
years earlier, that the municipal union of New York and Brook- 
lyn was only a question of time, and he considered it to be no 
mere flight of fancy to look forward to the traffic between the 
two cities requiring a good many more bridges than one. The 
idea of consolidating into one great municipality the counties 

177 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

within the Metropolitan area was not original with Mr. Green, 
but it was he who gave it life and invested it with reality, and 
from his commanding personality it derived the kind of force 
needed to translate it into fact. No other public man, and indeed 
no other citizen of New York, made the conception so emphati- 
cally his own, adhered to it with such tenacity, or worked out 
the details on its execution with such painstaking care. By 
general consent he has been declared to be the "Father of the 
Greater New York," but not many, even of those who worked 
with him, were in a position to appreciate how hard was the 
toil and how discouraging the obstacles that preceded the final 
attainment of consolidation. 

When Brooklyn first applied to the Legislature for a city 
charter, the application was denied because the Legislature took 
the view, urged by New York, that the annexation of Kings 
to Manhattan was manifest destiny, and that in retarding 
that consummation the granting of a city charter for Brooklyn 
would be adverse to the best Interests of both communities. 
In 1833, the fight was vigorously renewed by the Kings County 
representatives in the Legislature. They succeeded In having a 
bill to Incorporate the City of Brooklyn passed In the Assembly, 
only, however, to be beaten in the Senate. In the following 
year the Brooklyn politicians, backed by a public sentiment 
which did not favor continuance under a village government, 
entered the field again more determined than ever to secure a 
city charter. As before, the chief opposition came from New 
York, and a special committee of the Common Council of this 
city made a report, on January 30th, to the effect that the 
limits of the City of New York ought to embrace the whole 
of the counties of Kings and Richmond; that separate city 
governments for New York and Brooklyn could not fail to 
have an unfavorable influence on the progress of both com- 
munities, and that the time was not far distant when a population 
of two millions would be contained within the limits of the 
three counties. Notwithstanding this, and other forms of op- 
position, the city charter for Brooklyn became a law on April 8, 
1834, thereby postponing consolidation for over sixty years. 
The agitation for municipal union did not, however, altogether 

178 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

cease, and, curiously enough, the next notable proposal in favor 
of uniting New York and Brooklyn came from Kings County. 
In 1856 Mr. Cyrus P. Smith, then a State Senator from Kings, 
introduced a resolution looking toward consolidation. While 
public opinion in New York favored the proposal, there came 
from Brooklyn, and especially from Brooklyn officials, the most 
vehement opposition ostensibly based on feelings of local patriot- 
ism and civic pride. But little regard was paid to either in the 
passage of the Metropolitan Police and Excise Acts, supple- 
mented by similar legislation in regard to the Fire and Health 
departments of the two cities in 1857. These acts remained 
in force until April 5, 1870, and it was the Tweed Charter 
backed by a shallow pretence of restoring home rule to New York 
that again put back the process of consolidation by giving 
each city control of its own affairs. Meanwhile Mr. Green 
had begun in earnest the work of educating the communities 
forming the Metropolitan district into a perception of the 
absurdity of perpetuating the divided political jurisdiction under 
which they lived. Reference has already been made to his 
report to the Park Board on December 30, 1868, in which the 
argument of a previous report was taken up and amplified by 
directing attention "to the important subject of bringing the 
City of New York and Kings County, a part of Westchester 
County, and a part of Queens and Richmond, including the 
various suburbs of the city, within a certain radial distance 
from the centre, under one common municipal government, 
to be arranged in departments, under a single executive head." 
With this document, the consolidation movement which had 
to wait for its full fruition for twenty-eight years really began. 
Mr. Green was careful to base his arguments solely on grounds 
of public utility. He desired it to be expressly noted that his 
communication to the Park Commission dealt simply with works 
of a physical, material character, in which the Metropolitan 
counties had a common interest — such an interest, present 
and future, as would be fostered by unity of development. 
These works were the water supply, the sewerage, the navigation 
of the interjacent waters, the means of crossing these waters, 
and the land ways that should be provided on each side so as 

179 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

to insure the best facilities for both. He said that nothing 
was included in this communication that would not be more 
wisely and better planned and executed by a single authority, 
and nothing that proposed any present change in political 
jurisdiction, or that was calculated to disturb the functions or 
privileges of any existing officer or officers. The location, 
building, and maintenance of bridges or tunnels across or under 
the river, the improvement of navigation and the proportion 
of expense to be borne by the property benefitted could scarcely 
be adjudicated by independent political corporations, and the 
time that would be lost in conferences or litigations, and in 
efforts of the representatives of each city or county to throw 
an undue portion of expense on the other, would be detrimental 
to the interests of all concerned. 

Mr. Green went on to argue that if the convenient adminis- 
tration of the laws of these adjacent counties had required the 
exercise of a united authority in certain departments, it should 
not be found difficult in the case of clearer necessity for unity 
in the planning and building of these material works to secure 
the agencies that would promote such unity in a way entirely 
acceptable to the people of both counties. Although the advan- 
tages to accrue from a consolidation of a portion of Westchester 
with New York and Brooklyn into one municipality, with one 
executive head, would force itself upon the mind, yet all that 
was suggested or required for the proper conduct of the material 
works which he had enumerated might be gained without con- 
solidation. His purpose was to do no more than direct attention 
to the important subject of bringing the City of New York 
and Kings County, a part of Westchester County, and a part 
of Queens and Richmond, including the immediate suburbs of 
the city under one common municipal government. He re- 
marked that it would not be difficult to present reasons for 
such a territorial consolidation which would increase in cogency 
with the growth of population, and as facilities for intercom- 
munication were developed to meet the demand for local transit. 
More than one and a half million of people were then included 
within the area of New York and its immediate neighborhood 
all drawing sustenance from the commerce of the metropolis, 

1 80 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

while many of them contributed but little toward the support 
of its government. The area which could be readily described 
of convenient distances from the centre would comprehend within 
its limits the residence as well as the place of business of most 
of its population, thus resolving the question of taxation of 
non-residents which in those days was already a disturbing one. 
It was eminently characteristic of the sober-minded methods 
of Mr. Green that he declared it to be best at the outset to disturb 
only a few existing officials; their offices should be allowed to 
expire with time and with the general conviction that they were 
not wanted, all purely political questions and jurisdictions 
might remain for a time undisturbed. His idea was in short, 
gradually to bring without shock or conflict, the whole territory 
under uniform government. 

He asked, with a degree of conviction, which sounded quite 
otherwise than it did a quarter of a century later, whether 
any one could doubt that this question would force itself upon 
the public attention at no very distant period.'' Ingenuity was 
even then taxed to devise methods of carrying people from 
the suburbs to the centre, and the relations of the city with the 
suburbs were daily becoming more direct and immediate. Plans 
had already been matured to unite Brooklyn with New York 
by two magnificent bridges, which were but to be the precursors 
of others, and which were to supplement the accommodations 
of the already overtaxed ferries. An adequate system of com- 
munication was already projected to connect the extensive 
parks that both municipalities were then engaged in the adorning. 
Westchester was demanding ways to transmit its population 
to the city; Richmond County by its ferries and railways was 
exerting itself in the same direction. Briefly, all progress 
pointed, at least as Mr. Green saw it, toward eventual consoli- 
dation and unity of administration. It was obvious to him, if 
it were to no one else, that the disadvantage of an incongruous 
and disjointed authority over communities that were striving 
by all material methods that the skill of man could devise, to 
become one, would become more and more apparent and the 
small jealousies and petty interests that sought to keep them 
apart would be less and less effectual. 

i8i 



T HE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Mr. Green had to wait for twenty years before his scheme 
of consoHdation, which had come to be known as "Green's 
hobby," became a vital pubUc issue. In the New York Times 
of March ii, 1889, the fact that it had emerged into the position 
of being the question of the hour was thus recognized: "Mr. 
Green's original idea and the one to which he still adheres is 
that New York City should be extended from its existing 
Northern boundary into Westchester County, taking in the 
town of Pelham, that part embracing the land set apart for 
the new Pelham Bay Park, from its eastern boundary, taking 
in all of Kings County, and parts of Queens, including the towns 
of Flushing, Hempstead, and all others lying between them and 
the East River, and from its southern boundary, taking in 
Staten Island and all of Richmond County. Part of the plan 
as proposed by Mr. Green is the abolishing of the present 
system of local government, and the establishment of what he 
calls 'a local Legislature,' which body should be invested with 
greater powers than those given to the present Board of Aldermen, 
and which would be able to deal directly with some of those 
questions affecting the city which are now disposed of at Albany." 
In the same year, 1889, Assemblyman Ernest H. Crosby intro- 
duced to the Legislature a bill submitted by Mr. Green, providing 
for a commission whose members should be appointed by the 
Mayors and other local authorities of the communities interested, 
to inquire into the subject of consolidation. The bill, although 
it had the support of many of the most influential members of 
both Houses, failed to become a law, mainly because of the 
opposition from Brooklyn. The declared reasons for this oppo- 
sition were mostly sentimental, but they were really based on 
the apprehensions of local office-holders and others who feared 
that the merging of Brooklyn and New York would deprive 
them of their hold on the local treasury. 

But Mr. Green was not the man to submit to a temporary 
repulse. In 1890 he addressed a memorial to the Legislature 
reproduced in the appendix of this volume, which has been 
rightly characterized as having no superior among public docu- 
ments "for concise and impressive statement of facts, for 
unanswerable and irresistible logic, for charm and purity of 

182 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

diction, and elevation of thought combined with breadth of 
foresight." So far from being discouraged by the failure of the 
bill of 1889, creating a commission to inquire into the expediency 
of enlarging the area of the City of New York, Mr. Green hailed its 
passage in the Assembly and its progress up to the stage of third 
reading in the Senate, as warranting the belief that popular 
sentiment was keeping step with the swift material tendencies 
of closer approximation of borders, assimilation of peoples, and 
identification of interests toward speedy and inevitable con- 
solidation. The movement had attained sufficient impetus to 
make it possible to say that the question, which faced the people 
of the Metropolitan district, was not whether they should 
be drawn into closer union, but how and upon what basis such 
union could best be established. Those who looked upon the 
bill with apprehension as the first step in the development of 
a new policy, and in the line of movement ending in consolidation, 
were warned by Mr. Green that it was too late to take counsel 
from such misgivings. It was not a question of policy or of 
plans that was before them, but of progress of the law of evolu- 
tion, "no less natural or inevitable than the meeting of waters 
which, fed by inexhaustible streams, first finding lodgment in 
separate places among various depressions of the surface, but 
rising higher with the growing inflow, surmount the barriers of 
division, and become one." 

From the very beginning of this discussion, Mr. Green laid 
stress on a fact which is still but imperfectly apprehended by 
engineering authorities who suggest improvements in the trans- 
portation facilities of the Port of New York. That was that 
the waters of New York Harbor are not barriers or divisional 
lines, but a common highway and a bond of union. To use his 
own words: "Though geographically separating them, commer- 
cially and socially these waterways and natural canals really 
unite all the municipalities, and it is a perversion of thought 
and policy to regard these bonds of union as symbols of division, 
and to find in the paths by which we are united the lines by 
which we are all separated." 

He was equally in advance of the public opinion of his time 
in clearly discerning how, actuated by selfish motives, all interests 

183 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

tend to consolidation and trusts. Written to-day the following 
sentence would have the familiar ring of the voice of many 
orators, but, twenty years ago, it embodied a sentiment far 
less famihar and less acceptable: "The only interest which 
refrains (from consolidation), is that of our unselfish, thoughtless 
peoples and their fatuous municipalities, which in broken form 
carry on desultory and futile war against the organized forces 
of relentless and absentee capitalism resident in Boston, San 
Francisco, New Orleans, London, Paris, or Frankfort, voting 
by proxy or loaned stock in secret corporate directory, and 
determining for us what we shall do with our own, or whether 
it shall be our own; taking from us the meat of butchered freedom 
and leaving us the skin and bones to be taxidermed into living 
semblance and imposed upon our many-headed municipalities 
as life, form, and substance of true, original, heaven-born liberty, 
for our various Mayors, Supervisors and Councilmen with their 
henchmen and heelers to apostrophize and adore." It was no 
new conviction with him that popular right was still subordinated 
to the corporate power. He had it in the seventies, and later 
experience and observation had only served to confirm it. He 
had seen the great railroad corporations making their approaches 
on cities and villages without question of lines, of terms, of 
methods of operation, or public interest to be promoted, or of 
restoring at the dictates of public health and convenience 
surfaces which their embankments and excavations had thrown 
out of relation. "Ignoring city plots, grades, or topographical 
outline which mark adaptations to other business than their 
own, they force their way through, above, below, or around, as 
cheap instinct may best prompt, forecasting lines of abnormal 
development or desolation." 

Dealing with the local opposition of Brooklyn, he referred 
to what that city had done in constructing mainly at her own 
expense the bridge across the East River and in planning other 
bridges, tunnels, and new ferries to make the merger more 
complete. Reviewing what Brooklyn had done, and deliberately 
designed to do, in her efforts to establish closer and more com- 
plete relations with New York, he deemed it pertinent to inquire 
if the attitude of political separation maintained by her had 

184 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

promoted or retarded the work. Even in New York, misgivings 
were expressed in regard to the doctrine of consolidation, although 
the city was at the same time pursuing a policy which recognized 
and promoted it. Mr. Green was unquestionably right in his 
belief that the strength of opinion adverse to union resided in the 
official class, in politicians and office-holders. On both sides of 
the river, these apprehended diminution of their number and 
some diminution of their influence under the change. His 
comment on this was the eminently characteristic one that by 
weakling aspirants to public honor this fear may well be enter- 
tained, but it should inspire no concern in stronger natures 
who would find in larger fields ample reward and fame. He 
concluded by pointing out in phrases of obvious prescience the 
bearing of the whole question on the improvement of government 
of great cities which was nowhere else brought so conspicuously 
into trial as in the single commonwealth of divided municipalities 
which he was addressing. He insisted that great as were the 
interests of his fellow-citizens in the results, they were trivial 
in comparison with those which their example would affect 
throughout this country, the world, and history. He regarded 
it as no exaggeration to say that they owed it to themselves, 
to all their countrymen, and perhaps even to mankind, to eliminate 
from the test of popular institutions then proceeding all un- 
necessary factors of disturbance, "and allow the principle of 
self-government fair dispositions for acquittal against the 
incompetencies which by factitious conditions of multiplicity of 
governments in the same sphere have heretofore made it 
subject of reproach." 



i8s 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE CONSOLIDATION COMMISSION AT WORK THE APPEAL TO 

THE ELECTORS OF THE PROPOSED GREATER CITY CONDI- 
TIONS OF CONSOLIDATIOIS^ THE STRUGGLE AGAINST 

ADVERSE INFLUENCES IN THE LEGISLATURE THE 

GREATER CITY CHARTER OF 1 897 PRESEN- 
TATION OF THE COMMEMORATIVE MEDAL 

CHIEFLY owing to the efforts of Mr. Green, the Legis- 
lature passed and Governor David B. Hill signed, on 
May 8, 1890, "An act to create a commission to inquire 
into the expediency of consolidating the various municipalities 
in the State of New York occupying the several islands in the 
harbor of New York," which became Chapter 311 of the Laws 
of 1890. The act provided for the appointment by the Governor 
of six persons, who, with the state engineer and surveyor, and 
one person to be designated by the Mayor of New York, the 
Mayor of Brooklyn, and the boards of supervisors of Westchester, 
Queens, Kings, and Richmond counties respectively, should be 
commissioners to inquire into the expediency of the consolidation 
described in the title of the act, and who should report from time 
to time their conclusions to the Legislature. The commissioners 
were authorized to appoint a president, vice-president, and 
secretary, and to employ such persons as they might deem 
necessary, to gather such information and prepare such maps 
as might be needed to present their views Intelligently, and to 
submit such bills as they might deem expedient. They were 
to receive no compensation for their services, and were not to 
be pecuniarily Interested In any work or contract concerning 
their duty under the act and they were to Incur no obligations 
beyond the stated sum of $5,000 which was to be provided by 
the board of apportionment of the City of New York. 

The commissioners of inquiry appointed under this act were: 
John Bogart, of New York City, State Engineer; John H. 

186 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

Brinckerhoff, of Queens County; George R. Cathcart, of New- 
York City; Frederic W. Devoe, of New York City; Andrew 
H. Green, of New York City; George William Curtis, of Rich- 
mond County; John L. Hamilton, of New York City; Edward 
F. Linton, of Brooklyn; Charles P. McClelland, of Westchester 
County; J. S. T. Stranahan, of Brooklyn; Calvert Vaux, of 
New York City; and William D. Veeder of Brooklyn. Mr. 
Curtis decHned the appointment and Mr. McClelland did not 
act. The commission organized by the election of Mr. Green 
as president, Mr. Stranahan as vice-president, and William 
P. Rodgers as secretary. On the death of Mr. Rodgers in 1891 
Albert E. Henschel was elected secretary of the commission. 
During the year 1891, the commission made considerable prog- 
ress in planning out the details of consolidation. It held frequent 
meetings for consultation and action, accumulated much informa- 
tion, and listened to the views of delegations from the several 
sections of the proposed greater city. Coming together with 
different opinions in regard to the subject in hand which were 
freely expressed and considered, the members of the commission 
reached a practically unanimous conclusion in favor of consoli- 
dation. On March 22, 1891, the commission requested Mr. 
Green to prepare the draft of a bill to be submitted to the 
Legislature, which he reported on April 6th. This bill was 
sent up to Albany and was introduced simultaneously in the 
two chambers on April 7th, but for a variety of reasons it made 
no progress, and was practically pigeonholed at the end of the 
session. The commissioners were, however, not discouraged by 
the failure of this bill, and active preparations were made for 
the resumption of aggressive work in the fall. Before the end 
of the year various other meetings had been held, and the 
progress of the movement was sensibly advanced. 

The year 1892 found the commission ready to resume its 
work in the Legislature, and on Januray i8th, Mr. Green pre- 
sented to the commission the draft of a bill providing a plan 
of consolidation. When this came up in the Assembly on March 
15th, it was tabled after a somewhat turbulent struggle. The 
year 1893 found the consolidation inquiry commission still 
undaunted, and with a decided gain in the force of public senti- 

187 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

ment on their side. On Janurary 12th, the commission met 
and Mr. Green submitted his draft of a referendum bill whose 
object was to take the sense of the people of the various districts 
involved, each speaking for itself as to whether it desired 
consolidation. This bill was introduced in the Senate on 
January 25th and in the Assembly on January 31st, but was 
doomed to the same fate as its predecessors. It aroused the 
most violent opposition among the office-holding politicians 
of Brooklyn, although it was supported with great earnestness 
by many influential citizens. Two hundred of the latter 
chartered a special train, and on March 8, 1893, went to Albany, 
made speeches before the Legislature and asked for the passage 
of the bill. It failed of passage, nevertheless, in both Senate 
and Assembly. 

But public sentiment was now fairly aroused, the influence 
of the Consolidation League formed in Brooklyn in 1893 began 
to make itself felt, members of the Senate and Assembly favorable 
to the greater city were elected, and circumstances favored the 
passage of the referendum bill which was reintroduced in 1894. 
On February 8th this measure passed the Assembly by a vote 
of 106 to 7; on February 27th it passed the Senate by a vote 
of 18 to 7, and the bill became a law by the signature of Governor 
Roswell P. Flower. On October 15, 1894, the commission 
issued an address signed by Andrew H. Green, president, and 
J. S. T. Stranahan, vice-president, to the electors resident in 
the area of the proposed greater city. After indicating the 
meaning of the proposed vote about which there had been some 
popular misapprehension, and explaining some of the advantages 
that might follow consolidation, the commission explained that 
municipal union meant no more than the formation of a partner- 
ship between an established and prosperous firm and the younger 
members of the family. It added: "The name of a great 
city is a tower of strength. There is no good reason why this 
community and the country should not have the benefit of 
such prestige. Magnitude is not a thing of vapory dimensions, 
but a solid, substantial and a determining factor, of which it 
would be folly to deny ourselves the advantage in important 
issues." The address closed with an appeal to vote, on Novem- 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

ber 6th, a ballot for consolidation, and asked for the active co- 
operation of those who had so long looked with high expectation 
for the establishment of a metropolis "that shall be illustrious 
among the cities of the world, the greatest, the best governed, 
the most picturesque, with all the attractions of city life that 
the genius of modern civilization can devise." 

At the election of 1894 every municipality proposed by the 
commissioners for partnership in the greater city declared in its 
favor, with but two exceptions, the towns of Flushing and 
Westchester. The vote in the former of these was 1,144 ^or 
consolidation and 1,407 against, while in the latter there appeared 
a majority of one against consolidation. Taking the total vote 
throughout the area of the proposed greater city, there was 
registered the decided majority of 44,188 in favor of consoli- 
dation. Nor should the fact be ignored that in New York 
City where it was reasonably certain that a higher tax rate 
would follow consolidation, the vote in favor of it was 96,938 
to 59.959 against it. ^ ^ 

Immediately following this declaration of the will of the 
constituencies, the commission, on December 31, 1894, addressed 
to the Legislature of 1895 a memorial stating that the popular 
assent having been given to consolidation. It remained for the 
Legislature to determine the conditions upon which it should 
be effected. It was pointed out in this communication that 
the great diversity of civil jurisdictions already established 
by law within the area of the proposed greater city was but 
imperfectly understood. As things then existed, counties, 
towns, incorporated villages, school districts, officers and boards, 
with their varied powers and duties, wheels within wheels, 
issued their mandates, contracted debts, devised and executed 
each its own plans. It was remarked that were this complicated 
condition confined to the preservation of order, and to affairs 
not involving physical undertakings, the untoward consequences 
might pass away with the lapse of time. But when the numerous 
agencies thus engaged at cross purposes, were applied to the 
conduct of material works, it could be readily seen that the 
results, becoming fixed, were projected into the future to the 
continuous cost and discomfort of succeeding generations. 

189 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

It was recognized to be a task of no ordinary dimensions 
to fuse these multifarious powers, duties, and functions into 
a unit of governmental control. To suspend or disturb the 
existing machinery of administration, would inevitably bring 
confusion and litigation. The problem was, therefore, to pro- 
vide the means and methods for the transfer from existing con- 
ditions to others more simple and direct, without shock, injustice, 
or injury to persons or property. It was recognized that the 
discharge of such a task required the clearest forecast, the 
widest experience, and the most conscientious and painstaking 
application. What was immediately needed, in the judgment 
of the commission was the enactment of a simple declaration 
by the law-making authority, that the territory concerned, its 
people and its property, should thereafter be one city, under 
one government with one destiny; and the bill which the com- 
mission transmitted to the Legislature was framed in consonance 
with these views. It seemed too clear to admit of serious 
discussion that the administration of the affairs of the enlarged 
city should be conducted under the same corporate name, 
"The Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the City of New 
York." But there were three prominent conditions — debt, 
taxation, and valuation — whose final adjustment was open to 
discussion. The indebtedness of the divisions which it was pro- 
posed to unite differed widely, as did the rate of taxation and the 
percentage that the valuation for taxation bore to actual value. 
In the City of New York the debt of the city and county was 
practically the same; there was also but one rate of taxation 
and one standard for valuation. But in Brooklyn there were 
some forty-odd rates of taxation, each higher than that of 
New York, and there existed both a county and a city debt. 
However desirable it might be, it was obvious that the existing 
diversity in the financial affairs of the various municipalities 
could not at once be replaced by a less intricate system. This 
must be left to be adjusted by time and the provisions of future 
legislation, steadily directed toward the end that ultimately 
within the whole area of the greater city but one standard of 
valuation for taxation, one equal rate of taxation, and one debt- 
contracting authority only should exist. 

190 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

The Commissioners were also of the opinion that among the 
earliest and most essential movements for the administration 
of the contemplated metropolitan municipality should be the 
constituting of an elective legislative body with adequate powers 
and jurisdiction to give it dignity, respect, and importance. 
They regarded this as a solid and the only permanent basis 
of local self-government. In this body the elected representatives 
of each locality should have a voice in the determination of 
the improvements to be made and the money expended in their 
respective districts, preserving local influence with ultimate 
central authority. The idea was that the latter should be 
relieved of administrative details when its intervention was 
not necessary, and that the local representatives should be 
entrusted with such duties as they could conveniently discharge, 
care being taken, in a phrase eminently characteristic of Mr. 
Green, "to respect the natural desire of the citizens of various 
localities for the preservation of memorials of historic achieve- 
ments and local traditions." 

After quoting the report of the British Royal Commission 
on the amalgamation of the City and County of London, the 
Commissioners said that in reading the pages of this document 
one could only feel an anxious desire that the unification of the 
cluster of municipalities about our Port might not be postponed 
to be entangled with increasing obstacles, but that the question 
might now be resolutely and disinterestedly met and settled. 
In a sentence which bears obvious marks of the authorship of 
Mr. Green, it was added: "With a climate that contributes 
and favors the beauties and the bounties that come with the 
ever-varying seasons, with a diversity of topography that re- 
sponds to the amenities and the requirements of a great city, 
with a population of similar pursuits and interests, with capacious 
waters that bear to its marts the commerce of nations, nothing 
beyond the approval of the expressed wish of the electors by their 
representatives in the Legislature remains to insure the perma- 
nent establishment at this port of a city that shall in its Insti- 
tutions and its administration stand as a type and an example." 

While the bill submitted by the commission to the Legislature 
did not pass, the fact was developed that to consolidation as a 

191 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

general principle there was but little opposition. After several 
hearings on the bill it was amended so as to change the personnel 
of the commission, presumably in deference to the expressed 
views of the Governor. The bill was called up in the last days 
of the session and its passage prevented by the lack of the votes 
of two Senators. In the Assembly the vote was 80 in its favor 
and 32 against it. While the bill providing for a Greater New 
York failed to become a law in the session of 1895, an act was 
passed annexing to the City of New York all that part of West- 
chester County included in the plan of the commission, leaving 
the counties of Kings and Richmond and part of Queens still 
to be consolidated with New York. 

Mr. Green kept up the struggle more vigorously than ever, 
and he did not hesitate to characterize the opposition to con- 
solidation as it deserved. He spoke of the owners of some 
Brooklyn journals as possibly not unmindful of their own 
pecuniary interests, and not sufhciently careful to avoid mis- 
representations. As holders of large municipal advertising con- 
tracts, they may be said to be in a position similar to that of 
the office-holding class who necessarily do not favor any under- 
taking likely to loosen their hold on their places. When Mr. 
Green was engaged in the task of purifying the city government 
of New York, and was the target for the opposition of the 
newspapers whose advertising bills he had ruthlessly cut down, 
the Brooklyn Eagle was one of his stanchest defenders, but 
when the work of reconstruction invaded the Eaglets own 
bailiwick it took quite a different view of his public activity and 
said, among other things: "Andrew H. Green is neither liked 
nor trusted by Brooklyn. Brooklyn does not believe that he 
means well or has done well or would do well by Brooklyn." 
Even that veteran citizen of Brooklyn, Mr. J. S. T. Stranahan, 
did not escape castigation because of his efforts "to efface the 
city," and of one other member of the commission the Eagle 
said that his knowledge of Brooklyn and Brooklyn's knowledge 
of him "could be expressed by a cipher on the forever diminishing 
side of a perpetually decreasing decimal." 

Nevertheless, Mr. Green was unquestionably right in summing 
up the whole array of opposition to consolidation in Brooklyn 

192 



OF ANDREW H A S W E L L GREEN 

as a combination between the ofRce-holding forces and "the 
weaknesses of a sort of senile sentimentalism that is really 
quite incapable of appreciating the changes that the lapse of 
time demands for the development of great, thriving communi- 
ties, and which vainly strives to stay the wheels of beneficent 
progress by a display of flags and banners, the din of brass bands, 
and other claptrap, to capture the thoughtless and unwary." 
He added that it seemed trite to repeat the advantages which 
would accrue from the union of all the communities concerned, 
with their common interests and common destiny. Unity of 
plan of public works, the ultimate diminishing of the number 
of office-holders, facilities of communication — in short, all 
interests and economics, commercial and social, would be 
encouraged and greatly promoted by a united administration. 
Union was sure to come, and every year that it was postponed 
rendered its accomplishment more expensive and more trouble- 
some. At that time London was again endeavoring to accom- 
plish a union within its suburbs that had been under consideration 
for more than fifty years. Berlin was engaged in a similar 
work, and Mr. Green conjured the people of New York and of 
those areas that by common consent ought to form part of it, 
to avoid, by immediate action, the inevitable waste and embar- 
rassments involved in further delay. 

The consolidation movement received a considerable impetus 
by the passage on January 9, 1896, of a resolution introduced 
by Senator Clarence Lexow, providing that the Senate and 
Assembly committees on affairs of cities be constituted a joint 
committee to investigate and inquire into all the matters set 
forth in relation to questions of consolidation. This committee 
recommended the passage of a consolidation bill so amended 
as to provide for the appointment by the Governor of a new 
commission for drafting the charter, consisting of fifteen members 
of which the president of the inquiry commission (Mr. Green) 
and the Mayors of the cities of New York, Brooklyn, and Long 
Island City, the State Engineer and Surveyor and the Attorney- 
General should, ex-officio, be members. On February 25th 
the committee submitted the bill and report to both branches 
of the Legislature and the bill was passed in the following month. 

193 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

On June 9, 1896, Governor Morton appointed the members 
of the charter commission provided for in addition to those 
mentioned in the act, and the whole commission was thus 
constituted as follows: Andrew H. Green, president of the 
inquiry commission; William L. Strong, Mayor of New York; 
Frederick W. Wurster, Mayor of Brooklyn; Patrick Jerome 
Gleason, Mayor of Long Island City; Campbell W. Adams, 
State Engineer and Surveyor; Theodore E. Hancock, Attorney- 
General: Benjamin F. Tracy, of New York; Seth Low, of New 
York; John F. Dillon, of New York; Ashbel P. Fitch, of New 
York; Stewart L. Woodford of Brooklyn; Silas B. Dutcher, 
of Brooklyn; William C. De Witt, of Brooklyn; George M. 
Pinney, Jr., of Staten Island, and Garret J. Garretson, of 
Jamaica, Queens County. Mr. Fitch did not qualify and Thomas 
F. Gilroy was appointed in his stead. 

On February 19, 1897, the charter drafted by this commission 
was presented to the Legislature, and, having subsequently 
been passed, became a law by the Governor's signature on 
May 4, 1897. It took its place on the statute book under the 
designation of "Chapter 378, Laws of 1897," and it is entitled: 
"An act to unite into one municipality, under the corporate 
name of the City of New York, the various communities lying 
in and about New York harbor, including the City and County 
of New York, the City of Brooklyn and the County of Kings, 
the County of Richmond, and part of the County of Queens, and 
to provide for the government thereof." The territory thus 
indicated, whose exact boundaries were given in the body of 
the act after January i, 1898, was to be known as the City of 
New York. The city thus constituted was divided into five 
boroughs, to be designated respectively: Manhattan, the Bronx, 
Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. The Borough of Manhattan 
comprises that portion of the present City of New York known 
as Manhattan Island, also Governor's Island, Bedloe's Island, 
Ellis Island, Oyster Islands, together with Blackwell's Island, 
Randall's Island, and Ward's Island in the East and Harlem 
rivers. The Borough of the Bronx takes in all that portion 
of the City of New York lying northerly and easterly of the 
Borough of Manhattan between the Hudson and the East 

194 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

rivers, or Long Island Sound, and including the several islands 
belonging to the municipal corporation of New York not included 
in the Borough of Manhattan. The Borough of Brooklyn 
consists of that portion then known as the City of Brooklyn. 
The Borough of Queens comprises that portion of Queens County 
included in the City of New York. The Borough of Richmond 
comprises the territory known as Richmond County, or Staten 
Island. 

The new city came Into being, and its officers took office 
on January i, 1898. The first election for officers for the con- 
solidated city was held on the 2d of November, 1897. 

The area of this municipality is about 359 square miles. Its 
population was 3,360,000. it contained 1,200 miles of streets 
exclusive of roads and public highways, and 700 miles of sewers; 
It contained about 167,000 buildings, of which 130,000 were 
used for residential purposes. 

The legislative power of the enlarged City of New York was 
vested In two houses, known, respectively, as the Council and 
the Board of Aldermen, to be together styled *'The Municipal 
Assembly of the City of New York." The Council contained 
twenty-nine members. The President of the Council was to 
be elected on a general ticket every four years, and was to act 
as Mayor during the Mayor's absence or disability, possessing 
all his powers except those of removal or appointment. 

There were to be sixty Aldermen, one to be elected from each 
Assembly district of the City of New York and Brooklyn, one 
from Long Island City and Newtown, one from Jamaica, Flush- 
ing, and part of Hempstead, and one from those parts of the 
First and Second Assembly districts of Westchester County 
Included In the Borough of the Bronx. The Board of Aldermen 
chooses Its own president. The term of office for Aldermen was 
two years. 

Each head of an administrative department of the city Is 
entitled to a seat In the Board of Aldermen, and is required, 
whenever practicable, to attend the meetings of the Board. 
These executive officers have the right to participate in the 
discussions of the Board, but not the right to vote. If an 
administrative department is composed of more than one member 

195 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

the president or presiding officer of the department is designated 
as the member entitled to sit in the Board of Aldermen. Every 
ex-Mayor of the City of New York, as constituted by the act 
of consolidation, is, so long as he remains a resident of the city, 
to be entitled to sit In the Council and to participate in its 
discussions, but will not be permitted to vote. It Is expressly 
provided that "no ordinance or resolution providing for or 
contemplating the alienation or disposition of any property 
of this city, the granting of a franchise, terminating the lease 
of any property or franchise belonging to the city, or the making 
of any specific Improvement, or the appropriation or expenditure 
of public moneys, or authorizing the incurring of any expense, 
or the taxing or assessing of property in the city, shall pass the 
Council or Board of Aldermen at the same session at which It 
was first offered, unless by unanimous consent; and the same 
shall not be finally passed or adopted by the Municipal Assembly 
until at least five days after an abstract of Its provisions shall 
have been published." No member of the Municipal Assembly 
was during the term for which he Is elected to be eligible or 
to be appointed to any other office under the city, nor was any 
member of that Assembly, while such, to be a contractor with 
or an employee of the city or of either branch of the Assembly in 
any capacity whatever. 

A President for each Borough was chosen in the November 
election by the electors of each Borough, respectively. The 
term of office Is four years. A President of a Borough may be 
removed by the Mayor on charges subject to the approval of 
the Governor of the State. 

What may be called the executive control over public improve- 
ments was confided to a Board consisting of a President, the 
Mayor, the Corporation Counsel, the Comptroller, the Com- 
missioner of Water Supply, the Commissioner of Highways, the 
Commissioner of Street Cleaning, the Commissioner of Sewers, 
the Commissioner of Public Buildings, Lighting and Supplies, the 
Commissioner of Bridges and the Presidents of the several 
boroughs, by virtue of their respective offices. The Mayor, 
the Corporation Counsel, the Comptroller and the presidents 
of the several boroughs were not to be counted as members 

196 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

of the Board for the purpose of ascertaining if a quorum be 
present. No President of a borough was to have a voice in 
the Board of PubHc Improvements except upon matters relating 
exclusively to the borough of which he is President. 
"'Except as otherwise provided, any public work or improvement 
within the cognizance and control of any one or more of the 
departments under the charge of the commissioners who are 
members of the Board of Public Improvements, that may be 
the subject of a contract, had to be first duly authorized and 
approved by resolution of the Board of Public Improvements 
and an ordinance or resolution of the Municipal Assembly. 
When a public work or improvement had been duly authorized 
by the joint action of the legislative body and of the Executive 
Board, then, but not until then, was it lawful for the proper 
department to proceed in the execution thereof, but each com- 
missioner in his own department was to retain the control of 
the details of any such work or improvement. 

The Mayor, Comptroller, Corporation Counsel, the President 
of the Council and the President of the Department of Taxes 
and Assessments constitute the Board of Estimate and Ap- 
portionment, whose primary duty it is to make the annual 
budget of the amounts required to pay the expenses of conducting 
the public business of the city. The Municipal Assembly might 
reduce the amounts fixed by the Board of Estimate and Appor- 
tionment, but might not increase such amounts nor insert any 
new items; the Mayor has the power of vetoing the resolutions 
fixing such reductions, and unless such veto was overridden 
by a five-sixths vote of the Municipal Assembly, the amount 
fixed by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment should 
stand as part of the budget. 

It will be observed that the effective control, alike of public 
improvements involving the issue of bonds, and of the current 
expenses of the city, is vested in the Mayor and the other 
administrative officers. All of these latter, except the Comp- 
troller, who was to be elected by the people every four years, 
were to be appointed by the Mayor, to whom was also confided 
the absolute power of removal, without assigned cause, during 
the first six months of his term. After that a public officer 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

of the Mayor's appointment might be removed by the Mayor 
for cause upon charges preferred and after opportunity to be 
heard, subject, however, before such removal shall take effect, 
to the approval of the Governor expressed in writing. 

These provisions of what may be called the original "charter" 
of the Greater New York have been greatly modified by subse- 
quent legislation, the general tendency of which has been the 
concentration of authority and responsibility. But, if Mr. 
Green's faith in the efficacy of a local legislature to discharge 
the important functions which he desired to confide to it has 
not been justified by experience, time has shown that his belief 
in the development of a higher standard of civic conscience and 
a larger measure of civic pride was well founded. It has taken 
some years to demonstrate that what is called "party responsi- 
bility" was as frail a reed on which to lean in the achievement 
of honest and capable administration for the greater city, as 
it had been found to be in the history of its constituent boroughs. 
Nor has it been quite as easy as might have been anticipated 
to make the possession of public office in the Greater New York 
an object of legitimate ambition to men of the highest order 
of citizenship. But the hold of the party machines over the 
conduct of municipal business has been gradually becoming 
weaker; and both in the work of investigation and administration 
it has been found possible to enlist the services of men of trained 
capacity and high ideals. The process has, perhaps, been a 
more gradual one than Mr. Green anticipated, but it is not 
open to question that, since the consolidation of the communities 
included in the Greater New York, there has been a steady 
advance toward the application of business methods to the 
administration of the affairs of the second city of the world. 

Consolidation had no sooner taken effect than on January 
31, 1898, a number of public-spirited citizens met at the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel and took steps to memorialize the city government 
for a public celebration of the event on May 4th, the anniversary 
of the founding of New Amsterdam. Arrangements for this 
celebration, on a scale of impressive magnitude, were fairly 
under way, when the destruction of the Maine in the Harbor 
of Havana, and the subsequent declaration of war with Spain, 

198 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



absorbed public attention to a degree which rendered expedient 
the abandonment of the proposed New York celebration. But, 
after the conclusion of peace one important feature of the 
historical commemoration was adhered to. This was the work 
of one of the sub-committees, charged with the preparation of a 
historical medal whose presentation to Mr. Green was to have 
been the chief event of the first evening's ceremonies in Man- 
hattan Borough. The committee selected October 6, 1898, 
Mr. Green's birthday, as the date for the presentation, and the 
chamber of the Board of Aldermen was placed at its disposal 
for this purpose. The following letter was addressed to Mr. 
Green by the chairman: 

New York City, October 3, 1898. 
Hon. Andrew H. Green, No. 214 Broadway, New York City: 

Dear Sir. — In conjunction with other of your friends and admirers, the 
historical and memorial committee of the general citizens' committee on the 
celebration of municipal consolidation, appointed by the Mayor last spring, 
have imposed upon the undersigned the agreeable duty of inviting you to 
be present at the City Hall on Thursday next, October 6th, at 12 o'clock noon, 
and there to receive in the presence of your fellow-citizens a token of their 
appreciation of your manifold and disinterested public services to the city 
during the past third of a century. 

The vehicle of the sentiments which will be spoken on that occasion will be 
a gold medal, the first struck in commemoration of our municipal consolidation, 
in the accomplishment of which you were so important a factor. But that 
you may rightly understand the significance of the testimonial which is tendered 
to you, it should be said that the constituency represented by the donors 
is confined to no political party or social class, and even includes those who, 
having doubted the expediency of municipal union at the time and in the precise 
manner in which it was brought to pass, loyally accept it as an accomplished 
and now historical fact and recognize the lofty motives which inspired your 
efforts in connection therewith. In addition to the consideration of personal 
respect impelling them to this action, they are moved by a sense of duty to 
set a mark of approbation upon the civic virtues which you have so conspicu- 
ously manifested and which form the real basis of true citizenship in public 
and private life. 

With assurances of the high regard of our colleagues as well as ourselves, 
and trusting that you will find it as agreeable to signify your acceptance of 
this invitation as it has been to us to tender it, we remain. 

Very sincerely yours, 

Edward Haga^ian Hall, J^^' ^^^^ ^r^.S^^n 

o ^ L-hairman. 

secretary. 

General Stewart L. Woodford delivered an address upon 
Mr. Green's public services. After recalling Mr. Green's historic 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

communication of 1868, in which he outlined the territory now 
embraced in the greater city, General Woodford said: "To 
this dream of the greater city he adhered so resolutely and for 
its realization he labored so wisely and so untiringly that now, 
in the first autumn of its completion, it is just to salute our 
friend, as we do this day, as 'The Father of Greater New York.'" 
General James Grant Wilson made the presentation address, 
concluding as follows: 

"The gift which I now have the pleasure of presenting on the 
anniversary of your birth is intended to express our sincere 
respect and regard for a fellow-citizen who did so much to achieve 
the generally desired consummation, and who for three decades 
advocated the idea of Greater New York. Among the contribu- 
tors are several who doubted the expediency and wisdom of 
consolidation, but who accept it as un fait accompli^ and are 
happy to unite with its advocates in expressing admiration 
for one who has been for so long a period a high example of 
disinterested citizenship." 

Mr. Green accepted the gift with a brief acknowledgment. 

The medal presented to Mr. Green was executed by Tiffany & 
Co. from designs drawn by the secretary of the committee. 
It is a circular medallion, two and one half inches in diameter, 
of solid gold, weighing 191 pennyweights, and designed to 
symbolize on one face the present status of the enlarged city and 
to epitomize on the other its past history. 

As will be perceived from the reproduction herewith presented, 
it bears on the obverse, five seated female figures, classically 
vested, with interlocked hands, and further united by garlands 
of flowers, typifying the happy sisterhood of the five boroughs, 
whose names appear beneath. "Manhattan" sits in the middle, 
with "Brooklyn" and "Queens" on her right hand, and "The 
Bronx" and "Richmond" on her left. Rising behind the central 
figure, two fluted Corinthian columns support a pediment 
bearing an eagle with wings displayed (signifying the American 
spirit guiding the city's destinies), and enclose a tablet with 
the date of consolidation. In the background is a convention- 

200 





GREATER NEW YORK MEDAL 

Presented October G, 1808, to Andrew H. Green, 
by the Citizens of New York 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

alized view of the harbor. In the lower margin is the miniature 
imprint of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society 
which formally endorsed the medal as a work of historical art. 
The imprint is a reduced facsimile of the seal of the society, 
displaying three oak leaves between the motto "Parva ne 
Pereant" above, and the abbreviated title "Soci. Ameri. Numis. 
et Archseol." below. 

On the reverse or historical side the field is divided into four 
apartments by the arms of a Dutch windmill, taken from the 
seal of the city, displayed saltire-wisc. In the divisions thus 
created are placed scenes depicting four historic periods. 

In the first or uppermost quarter, the discovery of the site 
of the City of New York is represented by the ship Half Moon 
riding at anchor and taking in sail. In the background are 
conventionally represented the Navesink Highlands on one 
side and on the other the southernmost point of the future city, 
here occupied by Indian habitations, and in the foreground an 
Indian canoe. 

In the second quarter the settlement of the city by the Dutch 
is portrayed in a scene representing the landing of Peter Minuit, 
the first director-general, and the purchase of Manhattan Island 
from the aborigines. In the background the ship Sea Mew rides 
at anchor. 

In the third quarter is commemorated the termination of 
the Dutch regime and the advent of the English by a scene 
representing Peter Stuyvesant leading forth his troops with the 
honors of war from Fort Amsterdam, over which appears the 
English flag. 

In the lower quarter the American period is celebrated by 
the picture of a Continental officer standing before his head- 
quarters and reading the Declaration of Independence to the 
American army encamped in the "Fields," now City Hall Park. 

Opposite these four scenes, respectively, are the dates Sep- 
tember 2, 1609, May 4, 1626; September 8, 1664, and July 9, 
1776, separated by an escallop shell, a tulip, a crown, and an 
eagle, further symbolizing the voyager, and the Dutch, English, 
and American peoples. 

Upon the periphery of the medal is inscribed: "To Hon. 

201 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

Andrew H. Green, the Father of Greater New York, October 
6, 1898 — A Token of Esteem from His Fellow-Citizens." 

The medal was inclosed in a handsome leather case, similarly 
inscribed. 

In further recognition of Mr. Green's public services, the 
Board of Aldermen, in 1903, appropriated $2,650 for a portrait 
of him, to be hung in the City Hall. The painting, executed 
by Henry Mosler, hangs with the portraits of the governors in 
the historic Governor's Room. 



202 



CHAPTER XVII 

FOUNDATION AND GROWTH OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND THE 
MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ORIGIN OF THE METRO- 
POLITAN MUSEUM OF ART MR. GREEN AS EXECUTOR 

OF THE TILDEN WILL ZEAL FOR THE PRESERVATION 

OF HISTORIC MONUMENTS AND OPPOSITION TO 
THE REMOVAL OF THE CITY HALL 

IT HAS already been shown how broad a conception 
Mr. Green had of the educational uses of the park 
system of New York. He kept steadily directing 
attention to the necessity of treating Central Park as something 
more than a pleasure resort for the people, and of keeping steadily 
in view the development of a zoological collection and of museums 
of art and natural history in the Park itself or on ground adjoin- 
ing. In 1862 the Legislature passed an act authorizing the 
Commissioners of Central Park to set apart and appropriate 
to the New York Historical Society the building known as the 
New York State Arsenal, together with such grounds adjoining 
it as the Commissioners might determine to be necessary for 
the purpose of establishing and maintaining a museum of antiqui- 
ties and science, and a gallery of art. This proposition fell 
through because a certain part of the land upon which the 
Society desired to build was needed in the judgment of the 
Park Commissioners for other purposes. Contributions of 
animals, and of other objects of interest were, however, con- 
stantly being received, almost from the beginning of the Park. 
These were placed in the Arsenal Building, until the demand 
upon its accommodations became too great, and the interior 
of the brick edifice formerly used as a chapel at Mt. St. Vincent 
was decorated and fitted up for the reception of statuary. 

The American Zoological and Botanical Society was created 
by act of the Legislature of April 10, i860, and the members 
mentioned in the act were William H. Aspinwall, Hamilton 

203 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Fish, Robert L. Stuart, Charles King, Alexander W. Bradford, 
Benjamin H. Field, William H. Appleton, August Belmont, 
Frederick Prime, William P. Lee, Frank Moore, Augustus 
Schell, John D. Clute, B. K. Winthrop, George Opdyke, Henry 
Delafield, Archibald Russell, Frederick De Peyster, James W. 
Beekman, Henry Grinnell, Frederick G. Foster, Wilson G. 
Hunt, Robert J. Dillon, Luther G. Marsh, John C. T. Smidt, 
T. Bailey, William Caldwell, J. A. Gray, George H. Moore, 
John P. Crosby, Cyrus W. Field, R. O. Doremus, Matthew 
Morgan, George Folsom, Watts Sherman, John Jay, Shepherd 
Knapp, Parke Godwin, John Paine, C. N. Bovee, Charles 
Tracey, Charles Butler, William S. Mayo, Hiram Barney, 
Charles [M. Connolly, J. Winthrop Chandler, F. L. Olmsted, 
B. W. Bonney. The act further provided that the Secretary 
of State, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the President 
of the State Agricultural Society, the Mayor of the City of 
New York, the President of the Board of Commissioners of the 
Central Park, the President of the Board of Education of the 
City of New York, the President of the Board of Aldermen and 
of the Board of Councilmen of the City of New York should 
be ex-officio members of the Council of the said society. A 
more thoroughly representative body of men could not have 
been chosen, but the act lay dormant for a number of years 
while the Park Commissioners went forward with their work 
on the lines indicated in Mr. Green's reports. On December 
30, 1865, M.T. Green found occasion to say that the Board had 
not changed its opinion as to the desirability of the establishment 
of a zoological garden equal to the demands of a city like ours. 
Circumstances not under its control had delayed the beginning 
of the work in whose favor every year developed new arguments. 
It was thirty-five years after the passage of the first act that 
the Legislature, on April 20, 1895, passed another to incorporate 
the New York Zoological Society and to provide for the estab- 
lishment of a zoological garden in the City of New York. 
Mr. Green was chosen president, and at once applied to the 
Commissioners of the Sinking Fund for the allotment of land 
north of the Harlem River. This application, signed by Mr. 
Green and the Executive Committee, asked for "all that portion 

204 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

of Bronx Park which lies south of Pelham Avenue, of about 261 
acres in extent, to be used by this organization only under the 
terms of its charter." As usual, with documents of Mr. Green's 
authorship, the application was reinforced by an abundance 
of reasons forcibly presented. Though Mr. Green's occupancy 
of the presidency of the society was brief, he had the satisfaction 
of seeing the accomplishment by its aid of one of the public 
objects for which he had long and assiduously labored. 

On December 30, 1868, Morris K. Jesup, J. P. Morgan, 
John David Wolfe, J. N. Phelps, W. A. Haines, A. G. Phelps 
Dodge, Howard Potter, A. T. Stewart, Adrian Iselin, Marshall 
O. Roberts, George Bliss, William T. Blodgett, D. J. Stewart, 
James Brown, Benjamin H. Field, Robert L. Stuart, Robert 
Colgate, Levi P. Morton, and Theodore Roosevelt addressed 
the Park Board urging the establishment of a museum of 
natural history at that opportune moment when a certain 
valuable collection could be secured as a nucleus. Comptroller 
Green replied, concurring in the desirability of establishing in 
the Park a museum which should become an aid to the educa- 
tional system of the city. In 1869 he elaborated this idea in 
one of his cogent public papers, in which he went into the history 
of such collections abroad, and showed the particular need of 
them in a democratic country and the desirability of placing 
them in large cities where their usefulness would be greatest. 
He advocated the teaching of natural history in the public 
schools and the establishment of the museum to afford facilities 
for its study. On this point Mr. Green made the following 
remarks, which read as if they had been penned but yesterday: 

The present age is distinguished by the marvelous extent to which it has 
developed the various branches of science and the inventive and constructive 
arts which depend upon scientific principles. The eflFect of this remarkable 
scientific development is slowly reaching the very habits of mind, so that the 
people of the present day may be said to think differently from those who 
preceded them. The consequence of this change has been that mental culti- 
vation and the methods of education are at length beginning to be influenced, 
and the question of a more scientific culture for the masses of the people is 
receiving increasing consideration by the foremost nations of the world. 

As respects the abundance of the provision for diffusing knowledge among 
the masses of the people, this country takes confessedly the lead of all others, 
and the question which now chiefly exercises the minds of our thoughtful 

205 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



educators is, how best to introduce the study of nature or the elementary 
portions of science into common schools. 

This step, it is universally felt, must now be taken, but it is far from being 
an easy one to take. It involves a very considerable change in the methods 
of instruction. The notion current in the past, and still too generally prevalent, 
that all that is necessary to education is books to be memorized, and teachers 
to keep things quiet and hear recitations, is gradually being outgrown. It is 
more and more seen that the duty of education is to bring the pupil into direct 
relation with things themselves, that he may reflect and exercise judgment 
upon them. But the book method is by far the simpler and easier, and reduces 
the ofiice of the teacher to the very minimum of care, preparation and effort. 
On the other hand, to impart instruction by means of real objects requires 
actual and accurate knowledge on the part of the oral instructor; and, moreover, 
if the objects of nature are to be directly studied they must either be brought 
to the classroom or the classes must adjourn to the vicinity of the things 
themselves. This involves either an extra expense or a disturbance of the 
habitual order of school pursuits. The movement is therefore not without its 
embarrassments, although it is universally admitted that they can and must 
be overcome. Already the system of object-teaching has been introduced, 
not only into the public schools of this city, but into many throughout the 
country, and a disposition is more and more apparent to enter into whatever 
improvements are demanded in this direction. The time has therefore arrived 
when the attention of all interested in education in this city may be fitly 
drawn to the Central Park — to what is already accomplished there, and for 
what is further preparing to be done, to render it a great storehouse of appli- 
ances for the mental improvement of the youth of our city. 

In the same year — 1869 — ■ In which the American Museum of 
Natural History was founded, the sentiment In favor of the 
Museum of Art took definite shape at a public meeting held at 
the Academy of Music In November, when a committee of 
fifty was appointed to draft a plan of organization. This com- 
mittee was enlarged to twice Its original size, and included the 
principal patrons of art and some of the leading members of 
the National Academy of Design. The necessary charter was 
secured In April, 1870. As the buildings for both museums 
had to be supplied by the city, the Legislature, In response to 
the appeal of the Park Board, passed an act, on May 5, 1869, 
authorizing the commissioners to erect, establish, conduct and 
maintain. In the Central Park, a meteorological and astronomical 
observatory, a museum of natural history, and a gallery of art, 
and the buildings therefor, and to provide the necessary Instru- 
ments, furniture, and equipment. 

After the Central Park Commission had been succeeded by 
the Department of Parks, Mr. Green, as a member of the new 

206 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



Board, continued his efforts to forward the important under- 
takings originated under his administration. On March 20, 
1872, he offered at the meeting of the Board the following reso- 
lutions: ''Resolved, That this department approves of designating 
a site for the building of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on 
that part of the Central Park between Seventy-ninth and 
Eighty-fourth streets, and the Fifth Avenue and the Drive; and 
of designating a site for the building of the American Museum 
of Natural History, on that part of the Central Park west of 
the Eighth Avenue; and that the President inform these bodies 
of this action of the department." On July 20, 1872, Mr. Green 
offered another resolution, to the following effect: ''Resolved, 
That the landscape architect be instructed to prepare plans and 
estimates according to the study for the building for the Art 
Museum now presented, and that the same be submitted to 
this Board at the earliest opportunity. 

The conclusion of these buildings within the Park area was 
effected without injury to any of its landscape features. This was 
a point on which Mr. Green had steadily insisted since the 
earliest stages of the development of the new park system, and 
the absence of any natural beauties which might be impaired 
by the erection of buildings was one of the determining reasons 
for the selection of Bronx Park for the Zoological Garden. 
To quote the application to the Sinking Fund Commissioners, 
signed by Mr. Green and his fellow members of the Executive 
Committee : 

One important reason for our choice of South Bronx Park is that it contains 
several open areas in which all the large buildings could be erected without 
the cutting of any trees or shrubs whatever. The society desires to place 
itself on record as being opposed to the cutting of living trees or shrubbery 
in a public park, and to all plans involving any defacement or_ diminution of 
natural beauties. South Bronx Park is now asked for because it is eminently 
the place wherein a semblance of the natural haunts of wild animals can be 
secured by the adoption of Nature's handiwork rather than by the_ slow, 
costly, and not always satisfactory, process of artificial creation. It is also 
asked for because it is possible to develop upon it a zoological park of the most 
spacious and attractive character. 

At present the area in question is merely a tract of rough, unimproved 
land, part meadow and partly timbered, through which flows the Bronx River. 
Other parks in the Annexed District possess greater landscape possibilities, 
but the site chosen is particularly well adapted for the purposes of a zoological 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

garden founded on a large scale. It is, or soon will be, easily accessible to 
the people of New York and Brooklyn by payment of a single five-cent fare, 
its water supply is the best to be found in any of the northern parks, its contour 
is not so precipitous or so rough as to destroy its full availability to visitors 
on foot; its natural drainage is perfect; its shade is abundant and of the peculiar 
open kind so extremely desirable in a zoological park. It possesses four 
natural basins, in which ponds of great value to the collections, as well as to 
landscape effects, can easily be constructed. Its situation, contour, and for- 
estry all combine to give this spot an evenness of temperature not possessed 
by any other site of those available. South Bronx Park can be made a great 
popular resort for the people, wherein the benefits of zoological study can be 
more happily combined with the enjoyment of natural forest, field, and stream 
than could possibly be provided elsewhere. 

The remark was added that while most of the large cities 
of Europe maintain zoological gardens, many of which are 
magnificent in appointments and rich in collections, all, without 
exception, are confined to small areas and some are greviously 
cramped for room. A zoological park in which the large enclo- 
sures where a satisfactory attempt can be made to copy or 
suggest natural haunts, and where visitors can find enjoyment 
in the contemplation of fine, healthy animals, amid beautiful 
natural surroundings, is quite different from even the best 
fifty-acre menagerie. In obtaining a grant of land, the Zoological 
Society deemed it both expedient and necessary to secure an 
area large enough to admit of a portion of it being held in reserve, 
as breeding grounds for large species, to meet the demands of 
the future. In 1896, Mr. Green retired from the presidency 
of the Zoological Society, on account of temporary illness, but 
he was able to enjoy, before his retirement, the certainty that 
the task to which his energy had been largely devoted for many 
years was on the eve of accomplishment. Mr. Green was also 
one of the first trustees of the Museum of Natural History and 
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art — institutions which owed 
their existence primarily to his persistent advocacy as the Comp- 
troller of the old Park Board, and in whose prosperity he never 
ceased to exhibit the liveliest interest. 

Samuel J. Tilden died on the fourth day of August, 1886, 
leaving a last will and testament which was admitted to probate 
by the Surrogate of the County of Westchester, October 20th 
of the same year. Under its provisions Mr. Green found himself 

208 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

designated, together with John Bigelow and George W. Smith, 
as one of the executors to carry out a somewhat indefinite 
scheme of public beneficence which his lifelong friend and business 
associate had in mind. To his nephews and nieces Mr. Tilden 
bequeathed a sum equal to about one million dollars. The residue 
whose amount was necessarily uncertain being involved in 
enterprises and connected with liabilities whose returns were 
subject to unforeseen risks, he disposed of as follows: He made 
two small bequests for libraries, one in the town of Yonkers 
where he had lived some years, and the other in the town of 
New Lebanon, which was his birthplace. He then disposed of 
the entire remainder or so much thereof as might be needed to 
create a munificent and splendid charity in these words: 

I request my said executors and trustees to obtain, as speedily as possible 
from the Legislature, an act of incorporation of an institution to be known 
as the Tilden Trust, with capacity to establish and maintain a free library 
and reading-room in the City of New York, and to promote such scientific 
and educational objects as my said executors and trustees may more particularly 
designate. Such corporation shall have not less than five trustees, with power 
to fill vacancies in their number; and in case said institution shall be incor- 
porated in a form and manner satisfactory to my said executors and trustees 
during the lifetime of the survivor of the two lives in being, upon which the 
trust of my general estate herein created is limited, to wit: The lives of Ruby 
S. Tilden and Susie Whittlesey, I hereby authorize my said executors and 
trustees to organize the said corporation, designate the first trustees thereof, 
and to convey to or apply to use of the same the rest, residue and remainder 
of all my real and personal estate not specifically disposed of by this instrument, 
or so much thereof as they deem expedient, but subject, nevertheless, to the 
special trusts herein directed to be constituted for particular persons, and to 
the obligations to make and keep good the said special trusts, provided that 
the said corporation shall be authorized by law to assume such obligation. 

But in case such institution shall not be so incorporated during the lifetime of 
the survivor of the said Ruby S. Tilden and Susie Whittlesey, or if for any cause 
or reason my said executors and trustees shall deem it inexpedient to convey said 
rest, residue and remainder, or any part thereof, or to apply the same or any part 
thereof to the said institution, I authorize my said executors and trustees to 
apply the rest, residue and remainder of my property, real and personal, after 
making good the said special trusts herein directed to be constituted, or such 
portions thereof as they may not deem it expedient to apply to its use, to such 
charitable educational and scientific purposes as in the judgment of my said 
executors and trustees will render the said rest, residue and remainder of my 
property most widely and substantially beneficial to the interests of mankind. 

By the thirty-ninth clause of the will all the rest, residue and 
remainder of all the property, real and personal, of whatever 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

name or nature which might remain after instituting the several 
trusts for the benefit of specific persons; and after making pro- 
vision for the specific requests and objects as therein directed was 
devised and bequeathed to the executors and trustees, as such, 
and to their successors, in trust, "in the trust hereby created," 
to possess, hold, manage and take care of the same, and after 
deducting all necessary and proper expenses, to apply the same 
and the proceeds thereof to the objects and purposes mentioned 
in the will. In other words, the entire residuary estate, real 
and personal, was vested in the executors and trustees, in trust, 
upon the general trust, to apply to the use of any, all or either 
of the indefinite purposes indicated by the testator, with an 
expressed grant of exclusive power to the executors and trustees 
to reject one and adopt another, or substitute purposes of their 
own conception. 

In conformity with the expressed wish of the testator, the 
executors and trustees of Mr. Tilden's will made written appli- 
cation to the Legislature of this state for an act of incorporation 
of an institution to be known as "The Tilden Trust," declaring 
in such application that they "elected to confine their designation 
of the purposes and objects of said corporation to the establish- 
ment and maintenance of a free library and reading-room in the 
City of New York." On March 26, 1887, the Legislature 
passed an act entitled "An Act to incorporate the Tilden Trust 
for the establishment and maintenance of a free library and 
reading-room in the City of New York." The corporation 
thus created was empowered to establish and maintain such a 
library and reading-room and to take all property, real and 
personal, that had been given to it by the will of the testator 
or that might be conveyed to it by his executors and trustees, 
pursuant to the provisions of that instrument. The Act also 
contained this saving clause: "But nothing herein contained 
shall aff"ect the rights of any parties to any action now pending, 
or of any heir-at-law of the said Samuel J. Tilden." The 
charter containing these provisions was accepted by the executors, 
and the corporation was thereupon organized by the selection 
of trustees and by the appointment of a president, a treasurer, 
and other officers. On April 29, 1887, the executors and trustees 

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OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

delivered to the trustees of the Tilden Trust a formal conveyance 
of the testator's entire residuary estate, and that conveyance 
was formally accepted by the trustees of the Tilden Trust. 

Meanwhile, within three months of the admission of the will 
to probate, one of the nephews, George H. Tilden, began an 
action claiming an adjudication that certain of the provisions 
of the will were illegal and void; that as regards the property 
to which these provisions relate, the testator died intestate, 
and that, at his death, the titles to such property vested imme- 
diately in the plaintiff and in such other persons as were then 
the testator's heirs-at-law and next of kin. The action was 
brought to trial at Special Term before Mr. Justice Lawrence 
in 1888, and in January 1889, a judgment was entered declaring 
the thirty-fifth article of the will, already quoted, to be valid, 
and the residuary estate whereof that article undertakes to dis- 
pose to be vested in the Tilden Trust. 

Judge Lawrence concluded a somewhat elaborate opinion in 
this case by stating that if there is anything in the provisions 
of the thirty-ninth article of the will which seems to be incon- 
sistent with the thirty-fifth article or to conflict with the view 
that the testator intended to give to his executors an estate 
supportable as an executory devise, or with the view that the 
devise and bequest contained in the last mentioned article can 
be supported as a power in trust, after separating the primary 
from the uncertain ulterior gift, he thought that the cases which 
he had cited proved that the actual intention of the testator 
should be arrived at by an examination of the whole will. As 
it appeared to him that the intention of the testator was that 
the plaintiff and the other heirs-at-law and next of kin should 
receive nothing, beyond the provisions made for each of them 
in other portions of the will and should be excluded from the 
enjoyment of any part of his residuary estate, and as the carrying 
out of that intention could be effectuated without violating the 
rules of law, the provisions of articles thirty-five and thirty-nine 
should be harmonized, and the court refused to declare that 
the testator died intestate as to his residuary estate. Further- 
more, Judge Lawrence thought, that if the case was not free 
from doubt, the benefit of that doubt should be given in support 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

of the will under the familiar rule that the court should not 
declare that a testator died intestate, in respect to property 
which he had sought to transmit by will, unless compelled to 
do so. Again, even if the Tilden Trust as constituted by the 
Legislature was not the corporation which the testator designed 
that his executors should invoke the Legislature to create, the 
court should not on that account adjudge that the provisions 
of the will were void, since it was possible that within the two 
lives designated in the will, a corporation fully answering the 
testators' views might be called into being, or the powers of the 
existing corporation so extended as to meet the objections urged 
by the plaintiff's counsel. 

But the General Term of the Supreme Court failed to agree 
with Judge Lawrence, the judgment of the Special Term was 
reversed and a new trial was ordered. Upon this new trial 
the construction of the thirty-fifth article adopted by the 
General Term holding its provisions invalid, was, of course, 
followed, and the plaintiff prevailed. The judgment in his 
favor was subsequently affirmed on appeal, and the case went 
for review of that judgment of affirmance to the Court of Appeals. 
When it became evident that the court of last resort could not 
be brought to see that Mr. Tilden's method of disposing of 
his residuary estate was sufficiently definite to be legally valid, 
the executors of the will and the trustees of the Tilden Trust 
accepted the terms of a settlement proposed by one of the con- 
testants. By this means something more than ^2,000,000 was 
saved for the Public Library. In the course of time, the Tilden 
Library fund was joined to the Astor and Lenox establishments, 
and now forms a part of "The New York Public Library, Astor, 
Tilden, and Lenox Foundations." Of this institution Mr. Green 
was a trustee at the time of his death. 

While acting as one of the trustees of the Tilden Trust, his 
associates addressed to the Commissioners appointed to choose 
a site for a municipal building a communication which contained 
the following passage: "Much as we should regret the necessity 
of disturbing a structure consecrated to us like our City Hall 
by so many precious, historical, and forensic associations," 
and then proceeded to propose that "should such a necessity 

212 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

be found to exist, that admirable structure be transferred to the 
site now occupied by the reservoir in Bryant Park and appro- 
priated to the uses of that trust. " Mr. Green promptly followed 
this up by a communication of his own in which he fully con- 
curred with his associate trustees in their expression of dissent 
from the proposed removal of the City Hall. But as this 
dissent seemed, somehow, to have ripened into an attitude of 
active approval and zealous advocacy of the scheme, his long 
relations with the parks and his personal conviction that the 
area devoted to small parks should be increased rather than 
diminished, constrained him to hope that no portion of Reservoir 
Square, or any other park, square, or open ground on this 
island provided for the use of the people might hereafter be 
appropriated for buildings. In his judgment, the City Hall 
presents an example of fine architectural taste. In design and 
construction it is faultless as any structure in the city, while 
its historical relations involve events of paramount interest 
and personages of dignity and estimation. Standing as it does 
unsurpassed by any structure of its kind in the country, he 
argued that it should continue to stand, as for nearly a century 
it had stood, ample, commodious and convenient. 

Mr. Green's sedulous concern for the preservation of historic 
monuments was amply demonstrated in the vigor of his plea 
for the conservation of the City Hall as "a visible landmark, 
an object lesson to the people." Here the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was read to the American Army in the presence of 
Washington. Here a grand reception was given to Lafayette, 
and the freedom of the city, in a golden box to that coryphaeus 
of Democracy, Andrew Jackson, and here four generations of 
New Yorkers have been accustomed to witness imposing cele- 
brations. As Mr. Green regarded the matter, the building is 
indissolubly connected with its site and surroundings, and he 
asked: "Other than the City Hall, where in New York is there 
left a public building or monument of historic value.?" His 
counsel therefore was that, considered solely as a measure of 
prudent economy the City Hall should be let alone. Its dimen- 
sions would occupy more than the whole avenue front of a city 
block, and he added, if the Tilden Trust is to have it at all, 

213 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

let the Tilden Trust have it where it stands and avoid the wasteful 
process of its removal. 

Mr. Green admitted, while descanting on a subject in which 
his feelings were strongly enlisted, that it was perhaps but 
natural that many should fail to recognize or fully appreciate 
the traditions and the struggles that made this an independent 
Republic. But he was entirely clear that it is not wise to destroy 
the monuments that keep alive these lessons. Visible historic 
memorials are objects to attract the attention and to gratify 
the finer feelings of every class. No one however illiterate, or 
however refined, can see the ancient structures of England, Ger- 
many or France, without having his wonder excited or his thinking 
faculties stimulated. Recognizing the potent influence of asso- 
ciation, Massachusetts, in order to keep alive the memory of 
the deeds of the fathers, had recently incorporated a large 
number of its most esteemed citizens as Trustees of Public 
Reservations, "for the purpose of acquiring, holding, arranging, 
maintaining, and opening to the public, under suitable regulations 
beautiful and historical places and tracts of land within the 
commonwealth." Mr. Green pointed out that if Massachusetts 
needs more room for the public business, it does not pull down 
its State House, and he asked: "Shall the City of New York, 
great in wealth, in culture and eminent in the history of the 
progress of the Nation, destroy its only memorable public 
structure.?" He declared that no one could be more anxious 
than himself to give effect to Governor Tilden's intended bene- 
faction to the city to which he had rendered unexampled service, 
but, recognizing as he did the propriety and the justice of a 
public restoration of the means for its accomplishment that had 
been by public agencies so strangely diverted from Mr. Tilden's 
beneficent purpose, he nevertheless would deem it unfortunate, 
as one of those immediately intrusted with the execution of 
Mr. Tilden's intentions, to be found justifying an act that would 
be looked upon with disfavor by a large number of our citizens 
and tend to alienate many who are well disposed toward the 
object of the Trust. Mr. Green concluded his protest with this 
highly characteristic sentence: "Better than the costliest 
monument that the opulence of the public treasury could devise, 

214 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

if it is to be forever associated with an oflFence to the worthiest 
of civic associations and sentiments, far better that some modest 
structure rise beneath the shades of the lovely valley where 
he first saw the light, that shall keep alive the memory of this 
illustrious man, and stand a perpetual reproach to the conspira- 
tors, whose schemes and whose greed disturbed his declining 
years and frustrated the cherished purposes of a life eminently 
devoted to the interests of his country." 



215 



CHAPTER XVIII 

WORK IN CONNECTION WITH THE PRESERVATION OF NIAGARA 

FALLS — CREATION OF THE NIAGARA RESERVATION AND 

FOUNDATION OF THE AMERICAN SCENIC AND 

HISTORIC PRESERVATION SOCIETY 

TO VERY few men of his time did the natural beauties of 
his country make a stronger appeal than to Andrew H. 
Green. Without the faculty of poetic expression, he had 
the poet's eye, and the poet's enthusiasm for nature. Second 
only in strength to this sentiment was that which was aroused in 
him by the scenes of notable events in the history of his country. 
From his boyhood he had been a seeker after these, and a strenu- 
ous advocate of their fitting preservation for posterity. It was 
after the completion of the term of his stormy incumbency of the 
Comptrollership of the City of New York, and when he had 
assumed the executorship of the estate of William B. Ogden, that 
the subject of removing the eyesores which had vulgarized the 
surroundings of Niagara Falls, and of saving the Falls themselves 
from impairment of volume, began to occupy his mind. The 
subject was by no means a new one. Other minds had been at 
work on it before, but it is eminently suggestive of the dynamic 
impulse he lent to any cause which he espoused, that his name 
should be the first that occurs to any one familiar with the origin 
and development of the State Park at Niagara. 

In the early history of the Republic the idea of great National 
or State Reservations for the education of public taste or the 
diffusion of popular enjoyment had not begun to germinate. 
There is no record at least of any public protest when, in the year 
1805, the State of New York offered the land along Niagara River 
for sale. Large tracts of it were purchased by Augustus and Peter 
B. Porter, but the first settlement in the neighborhood of the 
Falls was destroyed during the War of 1812. In 1816 Augustus 
Porter purchased Goat Island and the adjacent islands from the 

216 



ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

State, and erected the first bridge connecting the main island with 
the shore. For seventy years the Porters and their descendants 
guarded Goat Island from encroachment, saved the primeval 
forest upon it from the axe and preserved the place substantially 
as nature made it. The early French explorers and traders built 
a mill beside the rapids just above the Falls. In Colonial times 
the British selected a site in the same neighborhood and erected a 
mill which was used for preparing timber for fortifications along 
the river. Immediately below were subsequently erected the 
Stedman and Porter mills, the first structures of their kind on the 
then Western Frontier. These were soon followed by the con- 
struction of two large raceways, which were used by manufactur- 
ing establishments, as was also Bath Island, situated in the rapids 
above the American Falls. 

The gradual disfigurement of the natural scenery of the cataract 
by encroachments for manufacturing purposes was noted with 
deep concern by visitors long before the final enclosure of the 
grounds in the immediate neighborhood of the Falls elicited 
world-wide protest. Largely due to the influence and efforts of 
the subject of this memoir, public taste had, by 1869, been edu- 
cated to a point where the unsightly structures which had been 
allowed to congregate around Niagara became a positive offence. 
As early as 1858 Mr. Green drew attention to the refining influence 
which Central Park had begun to exercise on its visitors. He 
said that "the desire for healthful recreation and exercise, and 
the taste for the natural beauties of the Park, whether in its sim- 
ilitude to the garden, the forest, or the field, develop and increase 
with the opportunity for their gratification." Men qualified to 
give expression and direction to the growing popular taste for the 
beautiful in art and nature were also beginning to be recognized 
in the public activities of the United States. It was in 1869 
that the necessity of taking some measures to preserve the beauty 
of the natural scenery of the Falls of Niagara from desecration 
was discussed, among others, by Frederic E. Church, the artist, 
Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape director of Central Park, 
and H. H. Richardson, the architect. Ten years before, the Park 
Board had sent Mr. Olmsted to observe and take ideas from the 
leading public pleasure grounds of the Old World. In pursuit of 

217 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

this mission, Mr. Olmsted visited Birkenhead Park, Liverpool, 
Astor Park, Birmingham, and the Park and Gardens of Chats- 
worth, including the private grounds of Sir Joseph Paxton. 
Thence he proceeded to the Derby Arboretum, and the Royal 
Forest and Park of Windsor. The authorities in charge of the 
Royal Palaces and Parks gave Mr. Olmsted all possible facilities 
for his study, and orders were given to the Superintendents of 
all the Public Parks in the vicinity of London to hold themselves 
at Mr. Olmsted's disposal. Similar courtesy was shown him by 
the authorities who had the direction of the pleasure grounds and 
promenades of Paris, and the Bois de Boulogne occupied a con- 
siderable part of Mr. Olmsted's time. Before returning he took 
in the Park and Gardens of Brussels and also those at Lille, 
returning thence to make a second and more protracted visit to 
London. 

All this was part of a training which proved of inestimable 
value, and in whose fruition Mr. Green took legitimate pride. 
But the artistic criticism of the monstrosities which had congre- 
gated around Niagara was not followed by immediate action. As 
a matter of fact, purely artistic criticism seldom is, and it was 
several years later before the artists who had discussed the condi- 
tion of affairs at Niagara made their first move by communicating 
with- the Earl of DuflFerin, then Governor-General of Canada, in 
relation to the establishment of an International Park on both 
sides of the Falls. As a result of this. Lord Dufferin, in a speech 
delivered before the Ontario Society of Artists, in Toronto, in 
September, 1878, announced that in a conversation with the 
Governor of the State of New York he had suggested that the 
Governments of New York and Ontario or Canada should com- 
bine to acquire whatever rights may have been established against 
the public, and to form around the Falls a small public inter- 
national park. 

The credit of taking the first practical step tov/ard the preser- 
vation of the natural scenery of Niagara is due to Governor 
Lucius Robinson who embodied in his annual message to the 
Legislature of New York the recommendation that commissions 
should be appointed by both governments to confer together as 
to the details of the plan which had been suggested by the Gov- 

218 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



ernor-General of Canada. The recommendation of Governor 
Robinson was referred to the Commissioners of the State Survey 
who found that the scenery of Niagara Falls has been greatly in- 
jured; that the process of injury was continuous and accelerating; 
and that, if not arrested, it must in time prove utterly destructive. 
The Commissioners added: "There is no American soil from which 
the Falls can be contemplated except at the pleasure of a private 
owner, and under such conditions as he may choose to impose; 
none upon which the most outrageous caprices of taste may not 
be indulged, or the most offensive interpolations forced upon the 
landscape." The Commissioners reported further that the rapid 
destruction of the forests, which once formed the perfect setting 
of Nature's gorgeous panorama, and the erection of mills and fac- 
tories upon the margin of the river, were producing a most in- 
jurious effect upon the character of the scene. They advanced 
other strong reasons for extending the protecting authority of the 
State over the Falls and immediate vicinity, and said: "Niagara 
is not simply the crowning glory of New York State, but is the 
highest distinction of the Nation, and of the continent of America. 
No other like gift of Nature equally holds the interest of the world 
or operates as an inducement for men to cross the sea." In con- 
clusion, they recommended the acquisition by the State of as 
much land as was absolutely necessary for the protection of the 
characteristic scenery of the Falls to be held in trust forever for 
the people of the State; that unnecessary landscape gardening or 
formal ornamentation should sedulously be avoided; and that 
natural conditions should be restored as far as possible and main- 
tained. 

In an address prepared for delivery before the Convention of 
the American Park and Outdoor Art Association at Niagara Falls, 
on July 3, 1903, Mr. Green summarized the successive stages of 
the struggle waged for the preservation of Niagara. He pointed 
out that when the movement started there did not exist a single 
state or national reservation created for the sole purpose of scenic 
preservation. There was no precedent to which to appeal, and 
the salvation of Niagara had to be worked out as a new proposi- 
tion and upon entirely new principles so far as legislation was con- 
cerned. The first national reservation of scenic beauty, the 

219 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Yellowstone National Park, was established by act of Congress in 
1872, three years after the Niagara campaign began, but even 
that afforded no standard by which to help or guide the savers of 
Niagara. The great Yellowstone Park of 2,142,720 acres already 
belonged to the government and it cost the people nothing to 
reserve it as a public park. The Niagara proposition, on the 
other hand contemplated the purchase by the state of land which 
had been improved under private ownership, and which was to 
cost the people at least a million and a half of dollars, solely for 
aesthetic purposes. The campaign, which was an uphill one 
from the outset, was, however, aided by the rebellion of public 
sentiment against the conditions by which private enterprise 
had surrounded the Falls. Had private greed not so far out- 
reached itself, and had it left even decently tolerable conditions 
at Niagara, the task of securing the public reservation would prob- 
ably have been even greater than it was. 

In response to Governor Robinson's message of 1879, the Legis- 
lature that year passed a joint resolution calling for a report on the 
measures expedient for carrying out the suggestion which the mes- 
sage contained. The report made by the Commissioners of the 
State Survey in 1880, in favor of the Niagara Reservation was re- 
inforced by a remarkable public memorial, addressed to Governor 
Cornell and Governor-General Dufferin. Probably no document 
of a similar character ever bore such a distinguished list of names. 
It was signed by the Vice-President of the United States, the 
Secretary of War, the Chief Justice and seven Associated Justices 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, members of the Cana- 
dian Bench and Parliament, the leading lights of the English and 
American Universities, the most prominent United States Sena- 
tors and Congressmen, officers of the American Navy, and eminent 
divines, literateurs, poets, statesmen, and philanthropists of the 
two English-speaking peoples. Among those who joined in this 
plea for Niagara were Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, Henry W. Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, John G. 
Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, W. D. Howells, Asa Gray, 
Alexander Agassiz, Phillips Brooks, and Sir John Lubbock. 

It would seem as if a petition bearing the names of seven hun- 
dred distinguished and representative citizens of the United States 

220 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

and Canada would have been sufficiently influential to accom- 
plish the purpose in view. But it failed to make an impression on 
the then occupant of the Governor's chair who considered Niagara 
Falls as a "luxury" for the enjoyment of which people should 
pay. The advocates of the reservation did not press legislation 
during his term of office, but they settled down to a thorough and 
systematic campaign of education. An organization called The 
Niagara Falls Association was formed in New York City by which 
individual effort was coordinated and public sentiment was 
worked up throughout the State by means of correspondence, 
personal interviews, public meetings, newspaper articles, pamph- 
lets and popular petitions. Mr. Green paid a special tribute to 
the Honorable Thomas V. Welch, who, when the agitation began, 
was a member of the Legislature from Niagara Falls and who 
afterward became Superintendent of the Reservation, for the 
public spirited and disinterested manner in which he had bent 
every energy to the service of its cause. 

With the accession of G rover Cleveland to the Governorship, 
in January, 1883, the prospect of accomplishing something at 
Albany became decidedly brighter. A bill was introduced "to 
authorize the selection and location of certain lands in Niagara 
Falls for a state reservation and to preserve the scenery of the 
Falls of Niagara," which was duly passed and signed by Governor 
Cleveland on April 30, 1883. Two days later the Governor ap- 
pointed the following as the first five Commissioners of the State 
Reservation of Niagara: Ex-Lieutenant-Governor William 
Dorsheimer, of Buff'alo, Andrew H. Green, of New York; J. 
Hampden Robb, of New York, and Sherman S. Rogers, of Buffalo, 
and Martin B. Anderson, of Rochester. 

The commission organized at Albany on May 29, 1883, and 
proceeded to the difficult work of examining and selecting the 
lands, which was followed by the appraisement and condemnation 
proceedings of the Commissioners appointed for that purpose. 
In 1885, the award of the Commissioners of Appraisement amount- 
ing to ^1,433,429.50 was submitted to the Legislature by the Com- 
missioners of the Reservation, with the request that the amount 
be appropriated. 

"Then," in the words of Mr. Green, "came the tug of war." 

221 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

He said that few people realized the powerful concentration of 
effort made at that time by the devoted friends of Niagara ; the 
terrific strain which they sustained for weeks and up to the last 
minute of grace allowed by law for the signature of the bill; or the 
narrow escape of the great project from defeat. The bill passed 
the Legislature, April i6, 1885, and went to Governor Hill. He 
had until April 30th, to sign it, otherwise, under the two-year limit 
in the Niagara law of 1883, all proceedings would have been void 
and of non-effect. It is said that he had a veto prepared but 
that word from Mr. Green's distinguished associate and Hill's 
political mentor, Samuel J. Tilden, placed the matter before the 
Governor in a convincing way. As Mr. Green records the inci- 
dent, while the clock was ticking away the precious minutes of the 
last hour allowed for the signing of the bill, and while some of the 
friends of the measure, including Mr. Welch, were almost holding 
their breath with anxiety in the office of the Secretary of State, 
the Governor's messenger entered with the signed bill, and the 
great victory was won. Niagara was saved, and a precedent of 
vast and far-reaching importance established which other State 
Governments and the Federal Government have freely followed. 
The improvements were begun at once and continued upon a 
single plan which has been consistently adhered to, namely, to 
restore the environment of Niagara Falls as nearly as possible to 
Its natural aspect, to remove every objectionable condition that 
in any way impaired the fullest aesthetic, educational and moral 
enjoyment and benefit of the spectacle, to facilitate public access 
in every way possible and to exclude everything of a commercial 
nature from the limits of the Reservation. Mr. Green further 
pointed out that as the original creation of the Reservation was in 
the nature of an example to the country, so had the Commissioners 
endeavored to make it a model of administration. From the very 
beginning of the Niagara movement, down through the campaign 
culminating in the law of 1885 and through the administration of 
four boards of Commissioners, no touch of self-interest or corrup- 
tion had tarnished its fair record. The Commissioners received 
no compensation for their sacrifices of time and convenience, other 
than the recompense of the approval of a good conscience and the 
knowledge that their administration of their great trust was mak- 

222 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

ing the work of park creation and scenic preservation easier 
throughout the United States. 

In the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Commissioners of the 
State Reservation at Niagara, signed by Mr. Green as President, 
from which most of the preceding facts have been borrowed, will 
be found a very instructive summary, prepared by Dr. Edward 
Hagaman Hall, of the obstacles which had been encountered and 
overcome in securing the creation of the Reservation. He 
enumerates first the vis inertiae of general public sentiment. 
The movement was the first of its kind on so large a scale for the 
purchase by a State of property for purely aesthetic purposes. 
It was without precedent; and people who were afraid to do any- 
thing that somebody else had not done before were hard to convert 
to the doctrine of public proprietorship in natural beauty — 
"the right of the people to enjoy, unmolested in person, and unof- 
fended in sight, the marvelous works of God as manifested in the 
exceptional natural scenery with which He had endowed the State 
of New York." Another great obstacle was the erroneous notion 
which had been generated by the use of the term " International 
Park" in connection with the proposed Reservation. People, 
whose conception of a "park" was an area of land, laid out with 
neatly trimmed lawns, formal pathways, geometrical flower-beds, 
composition statuary and cast-iron benches, imagined that it was 
proposed to take a vast tract on each side of the Niagara River, 
extending from far above the Falls to below the Whirlpool, and 
lay it out with conventional designs of paved roadways, and other 
artificial embellishments of decorative landscape gardening. 
It took some time to disabuse the public mind of this idea and to 
produce the conviction that the true object of the movement was 
a Reservation of natural beauty, not a formal park, and that the 
sole aim was to restore the landscape as nearly as possible to the 
condition in which man had found it. Another class of objec- 
tors were those who thought the plan too modest but, as Doctor 
Hall remarks, it can safely be said that a more ambitious plan at 
the time the movement was begun would have insured its defeat. 
There was also strenuous objection from some of the riparian 
owners and concessionaires whose property would be taken and 
whose privileges would be abolished by a free public reservation. 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

To disarm the hostility from these and other sources was a task of 
no small dimensions, and the triumph achieved was proportion- 
ally great. 

But the work was by no means ended. The Niagara Reserva- 
tion was avowedly created " for the purpose of preserving the 
scenery of the Falls of Niagara." The State had, however, by 
repeated acts passed subsequent to 1885, authorized various diver- 
sions from their channel of the waters that would naturally flow 
over the Falls. In 1889 a bill was introduced in the Legislature 
to authorize the "Niagara Hydraulic Electric Company to erect 
machinery under Niagara Falls for the purpose of utilizing the 
power of said Falls for manufacturing electricity." The Com- 
missioners of the State Reservation conceived it to be their duty 
to oppose the passage of this bill, and at that session the measure 
was not reported out of Committee. In their report to the fol- 
lowing Legislature the Commissioners avowed their policy in 
these words : 

It may as well be understood that the Commissioners will decline to entertain 
propositions or applications, on the part of individuals or corporations, to 
utilize the water power at Niagara; nor will they countenance any scheme 
the success of which would be likely to result in the defacement of the landscape 
or in any way interfere with the performance of the duty entrusted to them, 
namely, that of restoring the scenery to its natural conditions. 

To this position the commission consistently adhered and in its 
annual reports repeatedly called attention to threatened disfigure- 
ment of the Falls or impairment of theii volume. Defeated in 
the attempt to erect power works immediately under the Falls, 
enterprising promoters devised a plan of evading the uncompro- 
mising position of the Commissioners by taking water from the 
Niagara River above the Reservation and conducting it by sub- 
terranean tunnel to the river below the Falls, utilizing its power in 
transit. By 1894, the year in which the last Constitutional Con- 
vention was held, eight corporations had been chartered to use the 
waters of the Niagara River above the Falls for commercial pur- 
poses. Some were subject to no limitation as the amount of 
water which they could divert, and the situation had become so 
alarming that Mr. Green who was also a member of the Consti- 

224 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

tutional Convention offered in the latter body a resolution for 
the appointment of a committee to report to the convention 
whether the State Constitution should be amended so as to re- 
strain the Legislature from granting to corporations or individuals 
the right to divert the waters of the upper Niagara. The resolu- 
tion was adopted and the subject referred to a committee which 
reported that if corporate and individual ambition was not checked 
and made subordinate to public rights, there was danger that the 
Falls of Niagara, like the Falls of Minnehaha, might live in the 
tradition of song and story, but would be sadly deficient in the 
amount of water flowing over their brink. 

The committee further declared its belief that an amendment 
to the Constitution was needed to prevent further grants, and the 
draft of an amendment was submitted to the convention forbid- 
ding the granting of any charter to divert the waters of Niagara 
except for sanitary, fire, and domestic uses, and providing that 
corporations or individuals already chartered should be under the 
direction and control of the Reservation Commissioners. But 
the efforts of the opponents of the amendment secured its defeat 
in the convention. 

The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society was 
founded by Mr. Green in 1895. It was originally incorporated 
by a special act of the Legislature of the State of New York under 
the title of "The Trustees of Scenic and Historic Places and 
Objects." This title was changed to that of "The Society for the 
Preservation of Scenic and Historic Places and Objects"; and 
by Chapter 385 of the Laws of 1901 to "The American Scenic 
and Historic Preservation Society." The following summary of 
the aims of this association is borrowed from an interesting mono- 
graph on the subject prepared by its secretary, Dr. Edward 
Hagaman Hall: It is a national organization of men and women, 
animated by a love of the beautiful in Art and Nature, and in- 
spired by public spirit and pride in our National Annals, associ- 
ated for the protection of natural scenery, the preservation of 
archaeological remains and historic landmarks, and the improve- 
ment of cities. It aims to protect beautiful features of the natural 
landscape from disfigurement, either by physical alterations or by 
the erection of unsightly signs and structures; to conserve forests, 

225 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

streams and waterfalls; and to preserve from destruction remark- 
able formations and organic growths, possessing an artistic or 
scientific value. It endeavors to prevent the mutilation, destruc- 
tion or dispersion of American antiquities; to save from oblitera- 
tion places, objects and names identified with local, state, and 
national history; to encourage original research and promote the 
publication of original documents and contributions relating to 
American history aud scenery; to erect suitable historical memori- 
als where none exist; and to secure the bestowal of significant 
and appropriate names on new thoroughfares, bridges, parks, 
reservoirs, and other great municipal works. It promotes the 
beautificatlon of cities and villages by the landscape adornment 
of their open spaces and thoroughfares, the protection of their 
parks and trees from deterioration or destruction, and the cre- 
ation of public parks by private gift or the appropriation of public 
funds for the health, comfort and pleasure of the people. It cul- 
tivates by public meetings, free lectures, literature, prize com- 
petitions, correspondence and other educational means, popular 
appreciation of the scenic beauties of America and public senti- 
ment In favor of their preservation; and It promotes Interest in 
and respect for the history of the country, Its honored names and 
its visible memorials. 

The society is empowered by its charter to acquire by pur- 
chase, gift, grant, devise or bequest, historic, memorable or pic- 
turesque places in the State of New York or elsewhere in the 
United States, hold real or personal property in fee or upon such 
lawful trusts as may be agreed upon between the donors thereof 
and the corporation and to improve the same, admission to which 
shall be free to the public under such rules for the proper pro- 
tection thereof as the corporation may prescribe. In the State 
of New York the society occupies a quasi-official position, being 
required to report annually to the Legislature, and especially 
privileged to report at any time, by bill or otherwise, recommen- 
dations concerning the objects of the society. The property of 
the society is by law exempt from taxation within the State of 
New York. 

The society not only strives to influence others to perform acts 
of public beneficence, but it also shows its spirit by the examples 

226 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

of its own members. During the past decade, members of the 
society have made personal gifts aggregating $2,347,200 for pub- 
lic statues, tablets, and the preservation and restoration of his- 
toric buildings. The society has been chiefly instrumental in the 
creation of seven State parks and largely instrumental in the 
creation of an eighth. It has been the leading influence in secur- 
ing State appropriations amounting to $317,359 for State parks, 
and a minor influence in helping to secure appropriations amount- 
ing to $2,950,000 for similar purposes. It was the leading factor 
in securing the creation of Washington's Headquarters Park in 
New York City at a cost of $235,000. It is custodian of five 
State properties. 

Although performing functions exercised in some European 
countries by the Government itself, and in some cases actually rep- 
resenting State and local authorities at home, the society received 
no governmental financial support for its general work. The 
appropriations of public moneys which it receives are applied 
exclusively to the specific objects for which they are made with- 
out any adrriinistrative charges by the society. The society is 
therefore entirely dependent, for the maintenance of its general 
work, upon its membership dues, occasional voluntary contribu- 
tions and the income from the Green Memorial Fund mentioned 
hereafter. The expenses of the society during the first sixteen 
years of its existence have been less than $38,000, which is an 
indication of the economy with which its afl^airs are managed and 
which is an extremely small "percentage of cost" compared with 
the practical results of its work. 

On the death of Mr. Green on November 13, 1903, the Trustees 
of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society 
adopted the following memorial: 

The trustees of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, 
assembled in the City of New York, on Monday November 23, 1903, record 
with inexpressible sorrow the death, on Friday, November 13, instant, of 
the Founder and President of the Society, the Honorable Andrew Haswell 
Green. 

Although entered upon the eighty-fourth year of his age, he retained undimin- 
ished the vigor of those remarkable faculties which he had dedicated so unre- 
servedly and unselfishly to the betterment of the Community for full fifty 
years; and he was, at the time of his demise, easily the first citizen of his 
generation in the City of New York. 

227 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



The inflexible integrity of his character, the predominant good sense of his 
judgments, and the unquestioned disinterestedness of his motives, made him 
the repository of many great private and public trusts. Although honored 
with positions of grave responsibility by both the State and municipal govern- 
ments, he had no love of public office for its own sake, and repeatedly declined 
the tender of the nomination to the highest official honor in the gift of the 
metropolis. 

His influence was the power of a unique personality, coupled with a broad 
spirit of philanthropy; and his services, touching every conceivable phase 
of municipal life, were conspicuous not by reason of the public stations which 
he occupied, but because of the recognition which their intrinsic merits com- 
manded. 

The devoted patriot, in whose veins flowed the blood of an heroic ancestry, 
he took intense pride in the history of his country, the monuments and records 
of whose progress he strove to preserve. 

He loved, too, "her rocks and rills, her woods and templed hills," in which 
his responsive nature saw the beauty and grandeur of the Creative Power, 
and which, through the instrumentality of this Society, he endeavored to 
protect from the desecrating hand of man. 

And yet, devoted as he was to his native land, his all-embracing sympathies 
gave him a conception of human brotherhood which made him, in a larger 
sense, a citizen of the world. He believed in a more generous hospitality 
than the Federal Government has yet extended to the less fortunate people 
of other nations, in order that the world might share more largely in the blessings 
of the Republic. He loved peace, and abhorred war; and one of his last 
concerns was the advancement of that era of universal good-will among men, 
in which the guidance of reason should supplant the arbitrament of the sword. 

Beneath the Roman firmness with which in the public view he maintained his 
convictions of right and duty there was the gentle nature of a great and sym- 
pathetic heart, which blossomed in many an act of unpublished kindness, and 
which gave a peculiar charm to the private intercourse of personal friendships. 

And back of the practical mind which directed his utilitarian activities 
there was the cultured intellect which found companionship and delight in 
the products of the world's best thought. 

Pure in heart, lofty in ideals, gentle in spirit but strong in deed, he was one 
of nature's noblemen, who died as he lived, without fear and without reproach. 
The world is better for his having lived in it, and the standard of American 
citizenship is higher for the mark which he attained. 

The genius which he has wrought so laboriously and successfully into the 
better material conditions of the metropolis will minister to the happiness of 
generations yet to come; and his memory will be cherished with love, respect, 
and gratitude in the hearts of those whose history has been adorned with his 
illustrious career. 

On November 12, 1906, the heirs of the founder of the society 
gave to the society the sum of ^10,000 to constitute or be the 
nucleus of a fund to be known as the Andrew H. Green Memorial 
Fund. The principal is to remain permanently invested and the 
interest applied to the work of the society. 

228 



CHAPTER XIX 

PROFOUND AND CONTINUOUS ATTACHMENT TO THE HOME OF HIS 

YOUTH AN EARLY TRIP OF MR. GREEN TO WASHINGTON AND 

THENCE TO THE NEW WEST — CASUAL REVELATIONS OF 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL CHARACTER AND 

TASTES A CHARACTERISTIC ORATION AT THE 

ORIGINAL HOME OF THE GREENS 

WRITING from Ceylon to his sister Julia, in September, 
1865, aproposof the death of his father, William E.Green, 
Dr. Samuel F. Green made this characteristic reference 
to the filial relation of his brother Andrew: "By the roadside 
about one and one half miles from us, on the way to Batticotta, 
stands a banyan. The parent trunk, bulky and decayed, has long 
parted from the soil and is lifted up in midair, borne up by a 
staunch secondary stem. It reminds me of the venerated sire 
and the noble son who so liberally and tenderly has cared for 
him these many years." As already noted, the resolution to de- 
vote his life to his family was formed by Andrew H. Green as 
early as 1844, and he set himself to assume the responsibility of 
keeping a home at Green Hill for his father and sisters, while his 
own prospects in life were still beset with doubt and anxiety. He 
clearly recognized that the farm, without great caution, prudence 
and foresight, would drain every cent he could get, besides per- 
plexing him in his affairs in New York. But " for the good of the 
family and nothing else" he resolved to take it, trusting to caution 
and good management to clear himself and benefit those around 
him. From this resolution he never departed, and, some thirty 
years later, on his return to the home of his childhood. Dr. 
Samuel F. Green found that his brother had added so much to the 
farm and the house and had made so many alterations on the 
place that memory had to supply much that was once familiar to 
the sight. The Doctor had expressed the wish in his boyhood 
that his brother might become owner of the homestead; and now 

229 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

his wish was realized — in 1874 — far beyond what his youthful 
imagination had ventured to think possible. It was, however, 
the same hospitable home he had known when young, where all 
who came were ever welcome, especially those allied by ties of 
family. 

There were some anxious years between the formation of Mr. 
Green's resolution to accept all the responsibilities of Green Hill 
for the benefit of his family, and the final adjustment of all the 
interests which that involved. It was not until June 20, 1848, in 
a letter to his sister in New York, that he was able to announce 
that the business in relation to the old farm was complete, and 
that he had finally become its owner, subject to certain incum- 
brances which with strength and industry could be removed. He 
hoped that they would all pass many very pleasant days there, 
and he added: "It has been a long and very trying process for 
me. A kind Providence has been pleased to order the affair to 
this termination." The scrupulous and minute carefulness which 
in this as in other matters he brought to the discharge of any and 
every obligation he assumed is aptly illustrated in the following 
passage from a letter to his sister Julia dated July 8, 1848: 
"You tell me that the two quarts of milk have not been furnished 
to Aunt B. I should like to know why it has not been done, as it 
was my expressed request that it should not be omitted. I wrote 
to William N. some two or three days since, requesting an imme- 
diate reply. I have no right to trespass upon any one's private 
business, but these constant delays in answering my letters are 
extremely vexatious and keep me perpetually anxious. I shall 
look to you for a faithful compliance with my request, and can 
assure you that you never need fear that your letters will not be 
appreciated for lack of interest. I ask you to say to Father that 
unless Aunt B. has expressly stated that she does not want the 
milk furnished to her and in such a way that I can have full evi- 
dence of it, my wish is that the milk be furnished to her in accord- 
ance with the letter of my agreement, and it had better be kept 
for her at any rate." 

For the best part of forty years the improvement and embel- 
lishment of Green Hill was a constant subject of thought and care 
for Mr. Green. It was emphatically a labor of love and he en- 

230 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

tered into every detail of fencing, draining, replanting, and build- 
ing with all the zest of a man who cherished through all his life a 
passionate attachment to the home of his youth. His visits there 
were as frequent as the pressure of his private business and the 
still more exacting demands of public duty would permit. 
Through all these forty years Mr. Green's correspondence shows 
how constantly Green Hill was present in his mind, and how 
clearly he visualized at his desk in the city all the features and 
requirements of his country home. It would be tedious to repro- 
duce any considerable part of this correspondence in detail, but 
its general character may be inferred from the two following 
samples. The first is an extract from a letter written while the 
improvements at Green Hill were well under way, and when the 
place was beginning to assume the general character which it had 
before it passed into public ownership. The following directions 
occur in the body of this communication: "ist. Let the drains 
in lo-acre lot be completed and covered. 2d. Have a line of 
shade trees set 20 feet apart along front of my Belmont Street line, 
from the gateway down to the east end of my land, to be put 8 or 
10 feet from the wall as may appear best, and close to the wall if 
there is danger of narrowing the street too much — they may be 
elms or maples. Holes well dug and stakes should be put about 
them to keep cattle from injuring them. 3d. Have the meadow 
outlet filled in with stones and earth so as to flow back the water 
to about the surface of it, to be done so that it will not give way. 
4th. Have stones and stakes and wood and rails picked up all 
over the farm; the stones to be drawn to the nearest cross or 
boundary wall to be built; rails and fencing stakes put where 
wanted for use, wood for burning." 

The following extract is equally characteristic of the minute 
care with which Mr. Green superintended from New York opera- 
tions at Green Hill: "The season of fruits is actually upon us, 
and the time to have the examination and record of every fruit tree 
is here. Will you take Mr. Merriam and commence the work at 
once, and make it complete and thorough. I think every tree on 
the farm is numbered now, and of a great many trees about the 
house you know the fruit. These should be entered in the book 
opposite the number of the tree, and such very brief remarks as 

2^1 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



to the condition of the tree as you may think best. Where more 
than one kind of fruit is on the tree, note it in the book and add 
such remarks as to the origin of the tree, by whom and when 
planted, as you can obtain from Father. Where a tree or a limb 
of a tree is to be grafted, let a piece of shingle be wired to it so that 
it may be attended to in the coming spring. This is a rare year 
for fruit; each tree will this year tell its own story, and it will not 
do to let it pass away without this record. You need not make it 
laborious; take one lot a day with Father and Mr. Merriam and 
your book in your hand, and try and accomplish it thoroughly. 
Take paper enough so as not to crowd your remarks." 

In the early years of his public life, save for periodic excursions 
to Green Hill, Mr. Green traveled but little. In the late summer 
of 1857, however, he made a somewhat interesting trip by way of 
Washington Into Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota. There 
is nothing specially original in his simple, unaffected narrative to 
the family at home of what he saw. But at this distance of time 
his impressions of the then new West possess a special interest. 
The correspondence begins with a letter dated "Oakland, The 
Glades Hotel, tiptop of the Alleghanies, 2,600 feet above the 
level of the ocean, Tuesday, August 11, 1857," which gives an 
account of a trip to Washington, Including a visit to Mount 
Vernon, in the following terms: 

We hugged the flat lands of the seaboard from New York to Washington, 
and that tedious route was made additionally so by the non-connection of 
trains at Philadelphia. After sitting around there for three or four hours we 
left for Baltimore and got to Washington at about 6 A. M. . . . I called 
on the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of the Navy — the former, 
Howell Cobb of Georgia, a cautious, wily man, looking for the next presidency, 
the latter, a gentleman very affable and intelligent. I found that to get down 
to Mt. Vernon from Washington was an undertaking of about a day in a 
carriage over a most villainous and impracticable road, but my friend, who 
is the president of the Steamboat Company, said that a party or excursion was 
going down the river three miles below Mt. Vernon; that it was a respectable 
church excursion and he said he would take us down and while the excursionists 
were enjoying themselves at the "White House," a place of resort on the 
Potomac, he would have the boat return to Mt. Vernon with us and wait till 
we saw it and then go back for the excursionists. . . . We saw Mt. Vernon 
in as great a night — under as big a moon as I have seen of late, the Potomac 
and its banks and accessories were as placid and beautiful as could be desired. 
Julia was apprehensive that the boat would tip over, but, as good luck would 
have it, it did not; but, I must do her justice to say that it did cant over, inso- 

232 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



much that the little handfuls of water that stood in the hollows of the deck 
on the right side of the boat going down commenced running slowly across 
the deck, but luckily did not get clear across. I think the elevation of one 
sixteenth of an inch more would have sent at least one quart of fresh water 
right across the deck from the right side of the boat to the left side of the boat 
and thence right into the Potomac! 

Approaching Mt. Vernon we saw a multitude of logs that had been shot 
down the bank of the river and were destined to go to Washington to make 
canes from Mt. Vernon which have become an article of commerce. We 
reached a dilapidated dock; got ashore, went up a pathway that is behind 
that to Millstone Hill in convenience and comfort; through a lane — pigsties, 
negro house, etc., its ornaments — and went to the east door of Mt. Vernon 
house. Went in and through it and around and saw all its dilapidation, and 
it is all in that way. The owner, John A. Washington, lives here, a morose 
man, sells the timber of Mt. Vernon for walking sticks, charges the Steamboat 
Company lo cents for each passenger they land; shuts the gardens, sees nobody; 
wants to sell 200 acres to the Government for $200,000. He is after all excus- 
able; thousands go there and among them some who are not as quiet and 
restrained as would be well. He refuses to sell to any company, though I 
doubt not he could get a company in a week that would give him more money. 
We went away. I felt a sort of atmosphere around the place that impressed 
me during the few moments we were there. What I most desired to sec was 
the home and the plan of the home and grounds of the man who has filled 
and will more and more fill a high place among the great men of this world. 
Washington is becoming an ideal character; of course his perfections will 
be more prominent as time cuts off or rots away everything that is recollected 
in common with ordinary men. 

On August 13th Mr. Green writes from Indianapolis some brief 
details of the journey across the Alleghanies, and makes this very- 
characteristic remark: "We dined at Grafton and struck the 
Ohio at Moundsville about 7 p.m. I raised my hat at the first 
sight of the Ohio and found myself indeed in the country which 
Father has, from my earliest recollection, spoken of as the 'Ohio 
country.' It is now East instead of West." By August 14th 
he is in Chicago, which he thinks is about the only place he has 
seen since leaving New York that he would be willing to live in. 
"Great is the activity, the stir, the upturning, of this place; the 
crops are to be prodigious beyond compare." Closer acquaint- 
ance with Chicago does not diminish his liking for the place, but 
he rather inclined to think that they are on a high pressure prin- 
ciple and that things will explode, although he recognizes that 
there are considerations tending to modify this opinion. On 
August 23d he writes from Prairie du Chien that returning from 
St. Anthony to St. Paul the desire of the party was to get away 

233 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

because there is nothing at St. Paul to interest the traveler, "and 
one feels it a waste of time to remain there, when neither the com- 
forts of home nor the novelties of other localities invite." This 
is in a letter to his sister Lydia in which occurs the following 
query: "Did you not find the scenery of the Mississippi very 
tame and unimpressive.^ It is true it is different from anything 
else that I had seen, but 300 miles with only very slight variation 
of the shores or of the stream become tedious. I do not desire to 
go over the ground again, though I am not dissatisfied at having 
accomplished it." 

Reaching Chicago again in due course he writes from that city 
on August 25, 1857: "Land speculations are the principal mania 
of the country. For hundreds of miles beyond St. Paul the lands 
are eagerly sought for. There is likely to be a smash-up in this 
country before a great while. Money is excessively dear, com- 
manding very high rates. ... I think this place must con- 
tinue to expand and increase; still it seems to be from indications 
that I see around me that the land fever will soon take the ague 
turn." But however far from Green Hill, his mind and his heart 
were still there, and in this very letter he says: "I want you to 
write me particularly what is being done in the carriage house. 
Tell Mr. Wait that none but the best sort of workmanship will 
satisfy me; that he had better get the sill put in. I may get on 
in early part of September." 

At this time Mr. Green was a man of thirty-seven years, and the 
development of his character has been rather indicated than de- 
fined since this memoir departed from the lines of his personal 
diary. There is in his later correspondence singularly little of 
what may be called the human element. 

But beneath a somewhat austere exterior Mr. Green had a very 
gentle heart, which, when relieved of business cares, expressed 
itself in a winning glance of the eye, a melodious inflection of the 
voice and a gentle pressure of the hand. In the long course of 
letters addressed to one or other of his sisters at Green Hill there 
are but few expressions of sentiment, but now and again a little 
remark like the following crops out, revealing the working of the 
heart beneath: "The more I see of things and men the more I 
feel strengthened in the attachments that have grown up with 

234 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



me to those of my own household. Their society is agreeable to 
me; they are my home, and I wish I could make myself as accept- 
able to them as they are to me." That was written in 1866 and 
in a letter of twenty years later occurs this brief indication of the 
survival of a sentiment which Mr. Green bore with him to his 
grave: "Separated again from your presence I unite again by 
force of the pen, with you and all at the Hill. I felt while there 
very deeply all your kind attentions; the mending of my coat, 
darning of my stockings, and the general setting up of things were 
all appreciated. There seems with me a very great dulness when 
I go to you, owing perhaps to the letting up of affairs and perhaps 
something to the nature of the heat. I fear I don't make myself 
as agreeable as I ought." 

That the sentiment of home was very deeply Imbedded in the 
character of the Green family finds copious evidence in the letters 
of Dr. Samuel F. Green which were published in a memoir pre- 
pared for the family after his death. Writing in 1862 from No i. 
Fifth Avenue, New York, Doctor Green, then a man of forty years 
of age, says in a letter to his sisters at Green Hill: "I was much 
interested in hearing Father's letters and yours read last evening. 
Sisters two and I had a quiet time in back parlor by ourselves, 
. . . talking and enjoying in silence the near presence of the 
beloved . . . when in silence a number allied by blood and 
long association encircle an evening hearth, don't the hearts 
keep whispering to each other and conning of each other and pray- 
ing for each other to God?" 

Mr. Green's literary tastes which we have seen were somewhat 
varied in his youth took a narrower range as he grew older. Next 
to the Bible, which he read every morning, Milton, both in his 
prose and his poetry, was his favorite companion. "Lycidas" 
was his favorite poem, and it was characteristic of so profound 
an admirer of the "Areopagitica," that he should have proposed 
the erection in New York of a monument to Milton as the great 
apostle of human liberty. On one occasion he said: "I would 
rather be the successful projector of a monument to Milton than 
Mayor of New York." He could repeat by heart several of 
Milton's sonnets, particularly that to Mr. Lawrence, and the one 
to Cyriac Skinner in which Milton alludes to the loss of his eye- 

23 s 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

sight in writing the answer to the defence of Charles I by Sal- 
masius. Mr. Green was also a warm admirer of the works of Mr. 
James Bryce and of Lecky's "Democracy and Liberty." In the 
field of history Parkman was his favorite author, and in compar- 
atively recent books like "The Cycle of Cathay" and "China in 
Convulsion" he found a new outlet for his sympathies and a new 
series of peculiarly human problems to engage his mind. The 
literary favorites of his youth were not by any means forgotten in 
his later years, and among them Thackeray, Macaulay, and Burke 
continued to the last to be among his best-loved authors. But 
his sedulous devotion to the life and works of the great English 
poet grew stronger with years, as little indications like the follow- 
ing from one of his letters in 1885 fully attest: "I send a slip 
herewith which please have one of the children put in ist Vol. of 
Masson's Milton; fasten it in." 

Evidence of this intimate study of Milton crops up in a curious 
way in the course of an address delivered by Mr. Green at the 
150th anniversary celebration of the Greenville Baptist Church 
in Leicester on September 28, 1888. The occasion was pecu- 
liarly a Green celebration, the founder and donor of the church 
having been the third Thomas Green, dating from the original 
settler, who was also the original purchaser of Green Hill. The 
central feature of this celebration was the presentation of a me- 
morial tablet to be placed in the wall of the church as a gift from 
Andrew H. Green in memory of his ancestor. The address of pres- 
entation was made by Samuel S. Green, a great-great-grandson of 
Dr. Thomas Green for many years the honored librarian of the 
Worcester Free Library and in it occurs the following passage: 

As I stood not long ago on an elevation behind the mansion on Green Hill, 
Worcester, looking at the different villages that were in sight, when I glanced 
toward the South there appeared in view the spire and buildings on Leicester 
Hill. I could not help thinking that Thomas Green, when he brought his 
son, the first Doctor John Green to Worcester, when he was about twenty-one 
years old, selected Green Hill, for his residence in order that his native town 
might always be in sight from a spot near this house, and that the recollections 
of his home might continually call to mind the lessons in right living he had 
there received. The existing house is a pleasant reminder of the original 
dwelling occupied by John Green the first. With a fitting reverence for 
antiquity, when changed requirements called for a larger house, the present 
proprietor, Mr. Andrew Green, instead of pulling down the old house, cut it 

236 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

in two, and moving one portion back built a stately mansion between the two 
halves of the old house. You enter through a hall with a low ceiling, and passing 
through a portion of the old house enter the lofty hall and large decorated rooms 
of an elegant modern dwelling, and passing through these apartments come 
again into the rear of the old house. In front of the dwelling stands a venerable 
locust tree, which tradition avers grew from a whip-switch given to the first Dr. 
John Green in Leicester, and planted by him in front of his house. 

When it came to the turn of Andrew H. Green to speak he had 
to confess ignorance of from what part of England the lone im- 
migrant came who became the founder of the Green family in 
Massachusetts. He did know that this ancestor of theirs was con- 
temporary with very active and troublesome times in England, 
whose Monarch was already framing the timbers for his own scaf- 
fold. Mr. Green conjectured that his ancestor doubtless left 
his home partly on account of a desire for exemption from religi- 
ous constraint, and perhaps with some curiosity to see what was 
going on in the new world. "He may have bidden John Milton 
farewell at his father's law office in Broad St., London, or helped 
'waste a sullen day' with him at his country retreat at Horton," 
while he was giving the finishing touches to a mask, Comus, pre- 
paratory to its presentation at Ludlow Castle." Mr. Green 
admitted that there was the slenderest possible basis for assuming 
that their ancestor Thomas Green knew John Milton, although 
one Benjamin Green was a subscribing witness to that agreement 
by which for five pounds, "the great Milton, poet, statesman, 
scholar, sold his immortal epic to the printer, Symons." As a 
further excursion into the pre-American annals of the family, Mr. 
Green said that history affirms that one Thomas Green was a 
relative of and fellow comedian with William Shakspere, and that 
Shakspere's father possessed an estate which was known as 
Green Hill. 

What was perhaps more to the purpose was the fact that when 
the first Thomas Green set foot on this Continent Roger Williams 
was already here ministering among those who were to become his 
persecutors. Paying a passing tribute to the way in which the 
life and services of Roger Williams had been recounted "by that 
able historian and distinguished citizen of Rhode Island, my ear- 
liest friend the late Honorable Samuel Green Arnold," Mr. Green 
fitly characterized "that apostle of liberty who founded a govern- 

237 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

ment on the fundamental principle that the civil power should 
have no control over the conscience." Mr. Green went on to say 
that "our immigrant and his descendants" dwelt in this common- 
wealth along the shores of the sea for nearly a full century, but 
that in 1717 a grandson of his, Captain Samuel Green, started 
with his only son for the high and picturesque lands of the interior. 
"As were the Lambs, the Lyndes, the Dennys, Kings, Clarks, 
Southgates, Earles, and Henshaws, so was he one of the early 
settlers of this ancient and beautiful Leicester originally known as 
Strawberry Hill, as he was also an original proprietor of the neigh- 
boring town of Hardwick." Here on the banks of the river that 
turned his father's mill settled and lived Thomas Green the foun- 
der and pastor of the church whose 150th anniversary they were 
celebrating. As his descendant expressed it: "He was alike 
clergyman and physician, practising both professions with general 
approval and satisfaction. On Sunday he preached on this spot, 
while at his home across the way the pot was kept boiling to 
supply the needed sustenance to the little flock who came from 
all directions around to attend upon his ministration. Here he 
set the candlestick, and may he perish who would with sacri- 
legious hand extinguish its light." 

1^ Mr. Green took occasion to enter his protest against legislative 
proposals which were then pending to restrict immigration, and 
against the policy of retaliation and unfriendliness toward Canada 
which was emerging from the discussion of "the great fish ques- 
tion." He said that this latter had its counterpart in the early 
times of the village in which he was speaking. It is related that an 
early settler, whose name is said to have been Green, possessor of a 
small lake in that region, probably at what was called "Wolf Pit 
Swamp," being much dissatisfied with the Boston traders by 
reason of the high price they put upon their salt fish, inaugurated 
or threatened to inaugurate a policy of retaliation, much to the 
satisfaction of his worthy neighbors who wanted fish. Where- 
upon he proposed to import a sufficient quantity of salt to make a 
brine of to salt his lake, and raise salt fish right here at home, 
unless the Boston sharks would deal with him on more reasonable 
terms. Throughout all their generations the Greens have evi- 
dently not been deficient in the sense of humor. 

238 



CHAPTER XX 

MR. green's character AS JUDGED BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES 

THE TESTIMONY OF NEWSPAPERS AND OF PUBLIC MEN 

THE FAMILIAR FALLACY OF THE INCIDENTAL BENE- 
FIT OF RING RULE WHAT NEW YORK 

OWES TO MR. GREEN THE TRUE 

METHOD OF UPTOWN IM- 
PROVEMENT 

FROM first to last the impression that Mr. Green made on 
his contemporaries was singularly uniform. As we have 
already seen, he was, for a portion of his career, the target 
of unmeasured abuse on the part of those whose sinister schemes 
he had thwarted, or whose raids on the City Treasury of New 
York he had foiled. But even the newspapers that turned around 
and abused him when he insisted on subjecting their bills to a 
strict audit, had but one verdict to pass on his career and charac- 
ter when their judgment was still unclouded by personal interest. 
The daily and weekly press of New York hailed his appointment 
as Deputy Comptroller in September 1871, with one accord of 
praise. "If we cannot trust Mr. Andrew H. Green," said the 
Times, "we may as well give up all hope of finding an honest man 
to fill any public position. But Mr. Green is to be trusted." 
The Sun pronounced him incorruptible, economical, vigilant, and 
faithful, and said "there is no man better fitted by talents, by 
education, by experience and by character, to perform the duties." 
The Tribune declared him to be "just such a custodian of 
finances as it would have delighted Andrew Jackson or Silas 
Wright to have honored and trusted without reserve." The 
Journal of Commerce called the attention of ambitious young men 
to "the inestimable value of character. It is this priceless pos- 
session that gives to the new Comptroller the unbounded con- 
fidence of people of all politics and of all classes." "The man 
who now holds the keys of the city treasury," said the Evening 

239 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Mailf "is incorruptible, inaccessible to partisan or personal con- 
siderations, immovable by threats or bribes, and honest by the 
very constitution of his whole nature." The Evening Post wel- 
comed him as the man whom the people "have plainly designated 
as their choice." Later, the Post referred to "the reputation for 
stern, unswerving, unflinching integrity which he had acquired 
in many years of public life." The Globe characterized Mr. 
Green "as one of the most upright and conscientious men who 
have ever held office in this country. Never has the tongue of 
slander dared to impugn his honesty or general integrity." 

But perhaps the most exhaustive and in its way the most 
characteristic valuation of Mr. Green attempted at that time, 
was published in the New York Freeman's Journal and Catholic 
Register of which James A. McMaster was editor and proprietor. 
Mr. McMaster frankly avowed that he had tried to support the 
combination which had the rule of the Democratic party in New 
York, because he believed that the best interests of the country 
called for the election of the Democratic candidate for President 
in 1872, and that the powerful organization of Tammany was the 
apparent means by which that success was to be achieved. After 
making an impartial resume of the events of the early part of 
September, 1871, Mr. McMaster referred to the proposal to offer 
the deputy comptrollership to a man known to all New Yorkers, 
who had been intrusted with great public responsibilities and 
expenditures, and yet had so carried himself in them all that the 
bitterest enmity to him could only suggest that he was "too 
stingy of expenses to be fit to be the agent of a great and wealthy 
community, in carrying out vast public improvements." Then 
follows the tribute to Mr. Green to which reference has been 
made: 

This man is Andrew H. Green. He has been known in public affairs in 
this city for twenty years. We have known him longer than that; and we 
wish here to give our personal testimony to what we know of him. He is 
a man of very firmly settled habits. That is the tone of his mind. It is so 
much so that, strange as it may seem, in this age and country, he clings still 
and has always clung, to the old-fashioned idea that the only reputation 
worth having is that which is acquired by honorable conduct, and strict integ- 
rity. We do believe that Mr. Green is ambitious. But we know that his 
ambition is that laudable one, of making, and leaving behind him, an honorable 
name — honorable, not by titles, and still less by wealth hoarded or displayed — 

240 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



but honorable by valuable services to the public, rigorously discharged, for 
honor, and not for gain. This much we think is due to a gentleman who, 
exposed to every species of temptation, in the discharge of functions where 
many around him have, to us personally called him "a fool for not feathering 
his nest, as no one will believe he has not done it," surrendered his position 
as head of the Central Park Commission, not relatively but really, a poor 
man! Poor, not by extravagance of living — for Mr. Green is abstemious and 
strict in all his personal habits; but poor because he has clung to the notions 
of his untarnished boyhood, and has looked for honor through adhering to 
the paths of rectitude. 

Mr. Green, if he has time to read these lines, will be very much surprised 
at our having said this. But we owe it to the public, if not to him. We have 
been perhaps, cynical, since the "acceptance of the situation," as it is called. 
We remember saying to him, some years ago, when Mr. Green's name was 
proposed as Mayor: "I would like to see you Mayor; but it is no use to wish 
it. You won't lie, and steal, and bribe; and these are the means by which 
men gain, and keep, political power." 

It is a political refreshment to us, like a heavy dew on parched grass, for 
us to see a man we know so thoroughly in his public life, so signally vindicated 
in his judgment that integrity is better than trickery, and straight-dealing 
better than all the arts of rogues. If Mr. Green is retired, on the first of 
February, 1872, never again to appear in public life, a more signal public 
honor has been done to him than to have been mayor of New York a dozen 
years consecutively. Those big bankers, and men of immense wealth, looking 
round among each other, have found it their best policy, for the good of the 
city to rally round a man whose wealth is in the impregnable integrity of his 
character and in his business alertness and thorough experience. 

There was a movement afoot In August, 1876, to induce Mr. 
Green to allow his name to be used as a candidate for Governor of 
the State to succeed Mr. Tllden. An anonymous appeal to the 
people was issued by a friend of Mr, Green in which occurs a very 
striking summary of his public services up to that time. This 
brochure referred to Mr. Green's position as one of the Commis- 
sioners, and afterward — In 1856 and 1857 — as president of the 
Board of Education, In protecting teachers and pupils against 
the encroachments of ward politicians, "who sought entry Into 
the public schools in order to play the roles of Tweed and Garvey 
with repairs, new erections, supplies of fuel and books, or the sub- 
ordination of education to the miserable exigencies of that low 
order of politics which afterward, in other directions, assumed 
such formidable Influences." This publication further recounted 
that In 1858, when the Central Park was to be begun and pro- 
gressed, "so favorably was his executive ability, courage, and 
sturdy honesty already regarded that public opinion pointed out 

241 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Andrew H. Green as the best citizen to whom should be confided 
the great trust of economically supervising the expenditure of 
millions upon millions of money in that ' vast undertaking,' " 
This writer goes on to say: "Without hyperbole one may aver 
that his great executive ability, his entire devotion of time, his 
unwearying watchfulness, his enmity to extravagance, and his 
zeal in resisting the slightest attempt at political or plundering 
encroachments upon his great trust, have saved ten millions of the 
public money during those twelve years wherein, by consent of 
all party leaders and with the plaudits of every citizen, he re- 
mained at the head of the Park Department." 

Twelve years later, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, while Mayor of New 
York and when the question of nominating his successor was 
under discussion, said, in answer to the question of where he would 
stand in the event of Mr. Green's nomination: "Now you have 
mentioned the one man of whom I can speak without reservation. 
If there is one man who can be uglier than I can be in protecting 
the interests of the whole people and enforcing the laws, he is 
Andrew H. Green. I would support him no matter what Demo- 
cratic faction nominated him. I would not run against him. I 
shall go further and state that he is more fitted to be Mayor than 
I am. He ought to have been nominated when I was." 

Eleven years later still, the testimony borne by General Wood- 
ford to the character and public services of Mr. Green was merely 
an expression of the verdict which his fellow-citizens were in sub- 
stantial agreement in passing upon the fifty years of public ser- 
vice which Mr. Green had completed when he became the recip- 
ient of the gold medal commemorating the creation of the Greater 
City of New York: "To his honor, in this wealth-getting age, be 
it said, he never forgot his old Massachusetts training that bade 
him always to be a citizen. He has done his work as citizen all 
his life through, and he has done it not where the most glittering 
honors were to be won but where the best, the most useful and the 
most enduring work was to be done. He went into the school 
board of our city. He wrought there so patiently, so wisely and 
so efficiently that by common consent he was made the president 
of the Board. Then came that awakening sense of culture and 
beauty which blossomed into our public park system. Our friend 

242 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

had broadened and ripened in taste and character in his formative 
work in our schools, and he turned with interest and zeal to this 
new development of our civic life. He was and remains a man of 
essential initiative. He took into his park work admirable and 
educated taste, large views of what New York should grow to be 
and what the future would require, and better than all the cour- 
age to go ahead and secure what the New York of centuries to 
come should need. Without disparagement of others, Mr. Green 
may justly be called the creator of our New York park system, 
and I think we may justly claim for New York that, with the 
possible exception of Chicago, our city has the most comprehen- 
sive system of public parks that can be found in the world. This 
system is mainly due to Mr. Green." General Woodford also 
took occasion to pay Mr. Green a proper tribute for the develop- 
ment, outside of the park system, of upper or northern New York. 
There is no more prevalent misconception even among the people 
who have lived through the era of this development than that some- 
thing could be said in favor of Tweed and his gang on the score 
of their services in this very work of uptown improvement. It 
was, therefore, very much to the purpose that "A Son of New 
York," from whose brochure of August 19, 1876, we have already 
quoted, should have insisted that during the period in which Mr. 
Green was the directing mind of the park system, "he planted the 
germ of every public improvement which strangers now see 
developed or in process of evolution in that great area of the me- 
tropolis which lies between Central Park and those divisions of the 
city that, at Mr. Green's original suggestion, have been recently 
carved out of Westchester County. The scheme of adjacent 
parks, with boulevards, was entirely his own." 

As this is a subject which has hardly received the attention it 
deserves, and one in regard to which there exists a great deal of 
loose writing calculated to mislead the future historian, it may be 
well to trace with some detail the evolution of what may be called 
the uptown improvement of New York. The authority from 
whom we have just quoted directs attention to the fact that it was 
Mr. Green who convinced every one that it was more thrifty to 
lay out into parks the almost solidly mountainous regions of upper 
New York than intersect them with avenues, and thereby to the 

243 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

gigantic first cost of surveying, engineering, mapping, grading, 
sewering, paving, and setting them with gas and water pipes, add 
a second expense to housebuilders in blasting out granite for the 
foundations of buildings, and forming needful connections with 
public work. He adds that Mr. Green was also the first to per- 
ceive that in the form of bridges and perhaps tunnels the city in 
its northern expansion must be "streeted" (so to phrase it) 
across the Harlem River. In 1869 the Ring made a partial seiz- 
ure of these plans and undertakings, and undertook to accomplish, 
in the course of two or three years, improvements which good 
faith to the taxpayers and sound official judgment alike demanded 
should be spread over ten years step by step with the legitimate 
growth of the city. It is to this kind of enterprise that we owe the 
prevalent impression about Tweed and his fellow-conspirators 
having done so much for the work of uptown improvement. The 
fact was that a few unscrupulous officials succeeded in expending 
twenty millions of dollars during the period of Ring rule, and, that 
while they enriched some of their confederates, they actually 
bankrupted half the adjacent property-owners with premature 
taxation and forced assessments. 

What may be called the formal beginning of the work of mu- 
nicipal improvement in New York dates from April 3, 1807, when 
the State Legislature appointed Gouverneur Morris, Simeon 
De Witt, and John Rutherford commissioners to lay out streets, 
roads, and public squares of such width, extent and direction as to 
them should seem most conducive to public good, and to shut up, 
or direct to be shut up, any streets or parts thereof which had been 
heretofore laid out and not accepted by the Common Council 
within that part of the city, roughly speaking, lying north of 
Houston Street. At that time the population of New York did 
not exceed 80,000, being less than that of Philadelphia, and the 
assessed value of the property of the city was ^24,959,955 on 
which was levied a tax of ^129,155. But it was already apparent 
that New York was in commercial Importance as well as in other 
respects to take precedence of all the other cities of the continent, 
and various schemes of public improvement began to be agitated. 

At the time the commissioners of 1807 began their work there 
were very few improvements in the city above the New York 

244 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

Hospital. What is now Canal Street was then a ditch running 
through Lispenard's meadows, and crossed at Broadway by a stone 
bridge; the sidewalks of Broadway had been but a few years 
paved from Vesey to Murray Street; the City Hall Park had just 
been enclosed with a post-and-rail fence. Above Canal Street 
the lands were partly fenced in lots and fields; and although the 
jurisdiction of the commissioners began in the fields far above the 
settled portion of the city, their surveyors were constantly 
annoyed by suits for trespass for going over private grounds, 
showing the existence of a determined opposition to the prose- 
cution of any plan for laying out the city. One of the first ques- 
tions which engaged the attention of the commissioners was to 
determine whether they should confine themselves to rectilinear 
and rectangular streets, or whether they should adopt some of 
those supposed improvements by "circles, ovals, and stars," 
which, as they say, "certainly embellish a plan whatever may be 
their efi"ect as to convenience and utility." The consideration 
that "a city is to be composed principally of the habitations of 
men, and that straight-sided and right-angled houses are the most 
cheap to build and the most convenient to live in," determined 
them in favor of the rectangular plan. The plan was duly filed in 
1811, but as soon as the city began to approach the territory 
which it covered, and as early as the year 1814, applications were 
made to the Legislature to modify it. Writing in 1865, Mr. Green 
pointed out that no less than thirty-eight laws had been passed 
by the Legislature since that year for that purpose, so that al- 
most every one of the distinctive features of the plan, excepting 
that of the rectangular system had been abolished or materially 
altered. 

Above Forty-second Street the commissioners of 1807 wisely 
attempted little that was definite, and as the territory below 
Forty-second Street was of less uneven and rocky surface than 
that higher up the rectangular scheme of streets and avenues was 
not subjected to any great strain. Mr. Green remarks in his 
report from which we have quoted that it is very doubtful whether 
the rocky ridges of the island along the shores of the rivers, run- 
ning, as they generally do, longitudinally, should be cut by numer- 
ous crossing streets, especially where the grades to reach the river 

245 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

must be so steep as to render the convenient passage of vehicles 
impossible, and whether the longitudinal should not be more and 
the cross streets less frequent. In Mr. Green's judgment the 
natural indications of the island might have been more closely con- 
formed to by the provision of more longitudinal avenues; they 
would have been much less expensively made, and the public would 
have been better accommodated, since the bulk of city traffic 
is lengthwise the island. He suggested in 1865 that this error 
might yet in some degree be remedied by a relaying out of that 
naturally beautiful portion of the island which had then not 
been much built on or subdivided lying west of Eighth Avenue, 
between Seventy-second and One Hundred and Fifty-fifth 
streets. 

The problem of introducing such modifications as they might 
deem requisite in preceding plans was turned over to the Central 
Park Commissioners by the Legislature of 1865, which also con- 
ferred upon the Board powers adequate not only to the laying out 
of streets, roads, public squares and places, but to the taking 
of the land necessary therefor, and to the regulating, grading and 
improving of the same. That is to say, the Board was invested 
not only with the powers of the Corporation of the City, but also 
with those of some of the executive departments with relation to 
the streets and avenues included under its jurisdiction. The 
most important and difficult part of its task related to the laying 
out of the streets and roads, public squares and places on that part 
of the island above One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, and the 
provision of a drive from that street to the intersection of Fifty- 
ninth Street and Eighth Avenue, a distance of over five miles. It 
was recognized by no one more clearly than by Mr. Green that 
the ground to be laid out was of an unusually difficult formation to 
arrange on any symmetrical plan, including as it did many small 
proprietorships, the improvements upon which, already made, or 
contemplated, would necessarily interfere with any plan that 
might be adopted. Moreover, it was a work that could only be 
accomplished in all its details in course of a considerable space of 
time. At that time and all through the period of his connection 
with the work of uptown improvement, Mr. Green insisted that 
it was unwise to exercise the power of opening and working streets 

246 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

before they are needed; the owners interested should not be re- 
quired to advance the money to pay the necessary expenses long 
before a compensating use can be made of the property. These 
expenses are often considerable, and, if made before the property 
is usable, are in the light of advances of money without interest, 
and to owners of small means, they are often oppressive. It was 
Mr. Green's judgment that the owners of adjacent property may 
generally be relied on as the best judges as to the necessity of open- 
ing and working those ways that are more especially intended for 
the accommodation of the neighborhood. 

He pointed out the necessity of determining the course and 
direction of the streets that were ultimately to exist with refer- 
ence to the probable currents and volume of travel from the city 
below "from the future cities that are to crown the opposite 
Jersey Heights, the fields of Westchester and from the waters that 
are to bear that portion of commerce that is to seek accommo- 
dation at this end of the island." He also directed attention to 
the fact that the exceeding picturesqueness of the ground along 
the Hudson River, both above and below One Hundred and Fifty- 
fifth Street, much of which is well grown with fine park trees, 
afforded an opportunity to supply what will shortly be a want in 
a part of the city against which it cannot be urged that sufficient 
space had already been taken for parks. He said that this 
ground need not be very extensive; one of the points jutting out 
into the river, cut off from the hills by the line of the Hudson 
River railway, that from the slope of the land affords a conven- 
ient opportunity to bridge over the railroad, and a safe and agree- 
able access from the hill to the river side, would be suitable. It 
was characteristic of Mr. Green to think of the requirements of 
forms of sport for which he had no personal liking, and in this 
report of his, dated December 1865, he remarks that as the move- 
ment of population uptown would soon require for other uses the 
roads that have for many years served as a race-course, some other 
public road should be seized on where horses could be exercised 
and fast driving indulged in. He added that it was vain to argue 
against such recreations from the abuses that may attend them, 
and he thought that a course for riding and driving at a higher 
rate of speed than would be safe on the streets and roads of the 

247 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

city, would be one effectual mode of preventing dangerous driving 
elsewhere. 

From the beginning to the end of his active participation in 
public affairs, Mr. Green never ceased to make war on the extrava- 
gant cost of the legal proceedings attending the opening of new 
streets and the condemnation of property for public uses gener- 
ally. In the report from which we have quoted he says on this 
subject that as power to make applications for opening the streets 
in the district above One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, and for 
opening and widening several streets below was vested in the 
Commissioners of the Central Park, he thinks it exceedingly 
desirable to apply to the Legislature for such amendments to the 
law as will facilitate a reduction of the expenses of this class of 
proceedings, and get rid of the gross abuses that have long fas- 
tened upon them. With his characteristic breadth of view he 
points out that the manner in which any plan that may be pre- 
sented by the Board in regard to the subjects intrusted to them 
by the Legislature, would be received by the public, must depend 
upon the evidence it bore of an intelligent, comprehensive appre- 
ciation of certain very large questions. To insure the approval 
of present and future times it must comprise something more than 
a succession of regular figures, such as instinct leads the industrious 
insect to arrange for its habitation and storehouse. He said 
that it would be easy to write an essay that would stimulate the 
imagination with visions of parks, groves, terraces, fountains, 
statuary, and palatial residences, but the task before them was a 
practical one and it behooved them not to excite unobtainable 
expectations. Money would be needed, but it should as far as 
possible be required at such times and in such amounts as would 
not be burdensome, and so applied as to give no just occasion for 
criticism. While sufficient time should be taken thoroughly to 
mature a plan, it had to be remembered that delays were prej- 
udicial to the interests of proprietors as well as to the conven- 
ience of the public, since until the lines and grades of the streets 
and avenues were determined, improvements would be retarded. 
The unsettled plan operates as notice to property owners that if 
they proceed to improve, it is at the risk of waste of their outlay. 
Mr. Green proceeded to declare that this state of things ought not 

248 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

to exist one day longer than was necessary; that energy and intel- 
ligence should combine to terminate it. He pointed out that the 
tendency of modern contrivances for transportation seems to be to 
facilitate the massing of population in cities. New York, pre- 
eminently commercial, was already becoming a great manufac- 
turing centre of the country, population was pressing upon its 
territory, and with convenience for rapid travel through its 
extent would very soon wholly occupy it. 

There was, however, another side to the question of uptown 
improvement of which Mr. Green never lost sight. Speaking in 
1876, after the orgy of Ring plunder had been followed by the 
period of rigid economy of which he had to stand most of the 
brunt, he showed that the class of uptown improvements that had 
been pressed with such undue vigor for the last six or eight years 
had required expenditures disproportionate to those which had 
been made in the business part of the city. He added that one 
had but to spend an hour in the lower part of New York to see its 
streets in a most dilapidated condition, and what should be done 
was the immediate expenditure of a large sum of money in re- 
pairing the pavements of the streets downtown, where the neces- 
sities of commerce require it and where people live and transact 
their business. This he had frequently insisted upon for years, 
and he held it to be at least as wise to put those ways in order that 
are necessary to supplying aliment to the city, so that business 
might be carried on, as it was to drive any more avenues into the 
woods "that lead no where and are of no use to anybody." 

Ardent advocate as Mr. Green was of all forms of public im- 
provement, he strenuously insisted that such work must be done 
with a rigid comprehension of what the taxpayers are ready to 
bear. In that speech of his in October, 1876, he said that there 
was no need to increase the taxes one dollar if the money were 
faithfully applied. If the city got one dollar back for every one 
it spent there would be no lack of money and no increase of the 
debt. Then he remarked: "We want to husband the revenues 
of this city. They are princely. They have been wasted. The 
laws are very incomplete in regard to them. If they were hus- 
banded they would go far to alleviate the oppression of taxation 
that we have had upon us. In the coming year we shall be re- 

249 



ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

lleved largely by a reduction of the State tax of some ^3,000,000 
or $4,000,000. We have an office-holding class here that take 
very good care of themselves in Albany, and if we had another 
class that were equally attentive I think we should make large 
reductions in our expenditures." This was merely an echo of 
what he had said in a communication addressed to Mr. William 
A. Booth and others two years before to the effect that if the 
people of New York wanted to put a stop to the squandering of 
their money upon public improvements which were not required, 
and were to compel its application to those most urgently needed, 
they must make themselves heard in the State Legislature in a 
tone of sufficient authority to silence the clamor of the corrupt 
lobby that yearly struggled for a share of the patronage and 
pickings of this great city, and that will always be found at the 
back of the department which has the greatest ability and will to 
dispose of such things. That the people of New York have come 
to recognize the necessity of such watchfulness. In the public life 
of this city, is due to no man so much as to Andrew H. Green. 



250 



CHAPTER XXI 

PERMANENT INFLUENCE OF MR. GREEN ON CITY ADMINISTRATION — ■ 
THE STANDARDS AND IDEALS OF THE FATHER OF THE 

GREATER NEW YORK HIS UNIQUE POSITION IN 

RELATION TO THE PROGRESS OF THE CITY 

CLOSING YEARS AND TRAGIC END 

IN TRYING to appraise the value of the permanent 
influence of a career and character like that of Andrew 
H. Green it is necessary to bear constantly in mind 
the moral standards of those who shared with him the responsi- 
bilities of public life. iVs has already been sufficiently indicated, 
these standards were, in the main, deplorably low. It would 
be absurd to claim for Mr. Green the distinction of being the 
only man of his generation who brought to the discharge of 
every public duty which he undertook inflexible integrity, and 
maintained throughout all his public career a character of un- 
sullied honesty. He himself disliked nothing so much as lauda- 
tion based on the fact that he was an "honest man," insisting 
always that honesty ought to be taken as a matter of course 
and not of special distinction. He was the sworn foe of all 
loose standards of official conduct, and had as little patience 
with flabby incapacity as with downright rascality. But it 
would be doing less than justice to the work he did in the most 
strenuous years of his life, and to the impression he left on the 
municipal administration of New York, to ignore the fact that 
the work was made doubly hard by the rarity in that adminis- 
tration of either ability or honesty. Long before matters reached 
a crisis in the city government, people had ceased to expect 
any conspicuous endowment of either capacity or rectitude 
among the men whom the professional politicians placed in the 
offices of public trust. As has also been already emphasized 
in the preceding pages, men of means and of standing in the 
community — great property-owners, rich merchants, and influ- 

251 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

ential bankers — were ready to make the best bargain they 
could with men whom they must have known to be no better 
than professional thieves. But for the passive tolerance of 
these and the active support of others, the Tweed Ring never 
would have come into existence, or, having been formed, would 
have been far less potent than it proved to be for purposes of 
plunder. 

In a generation less critical of its public servants than the 
present, or in which there was at least a proportionately larger 
number of voters with whom moral considerations had but little 
weight, Mr. Green stood, consistently and resolutely, for the 
highest standards of public duty. What it cost him in the way 
of abuse, while in the Comptroller's office, could be but partially 
indicated in the preceding narrative, since for at least four 
years the record was one of almost daily attack. In this con- 
nection, the following extract from the Evening Telegram of 
February 20, 1872, apropos of a hostile demonstration of so- 
called city laborers will be found highly suggestive: 

If Comptroller Green were a thief or a criminal of any kind, he could scarcely 
come in for more bitter abuse than he is now receiving. He is assailed after 
a worse fashion than any member of the infamous Tammany Ring. Who has 
heard of any of the late rejected rulers and robbers being threatened with 
mob violence? Yet here is a man, who is doing herculean work in the honest 
interest and welfare of every man in this city who pays a dollar of taxes, 
vilified and assaulted in the midst of his labors. Comptroller Green must 
feel satisfied that the best sentiment of the community is on his side, and that 
he is bound to receive every support whenever he needs it. If mobs are to 
dictate how the contents of the people's treasury are to be distributed, we 
might as well put an end to government at once. 

The fact that this reads as if it had been written of some 
alien people in times remote from ours is due to the fact that 
Mr. Green's influence did more than any other single thing to 
lift the conduct of public business in New York to a higher 
plane, and that his influence survives in the process of gradual 
improvement which in spite of manifold obstacles has been fairly 
continuous. The spectacle of a man honestly trying to do his 
whole duty to the public being hounded day after day by the 
paid emissaries of a parcel of thieves whose grasp on the treasury 
had been only partially unloosed, was one which served to bring 

252 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

home to respectable people in New York the disgrace which their 
neglect of civic duty had brought upon the city. The people 
had received an object lesson in the ease with which rascality 
of the grossest and most shameless kind could succeed in politics, 
and they were being shown how hard the path of rectitude 
could be made even when followed in their own service. The 
contrast could hardly fail to have its educating influence, diluted 
as the latter might be by the professional politicians of both 
parties to whom so simple an issue as public honesty had no 
attraction. 

Mr. Green's struggle with the corrupt elements of the public 
life of his time was hardly more strenuous than that which he 
waged against the Philistinism which obstructed the realization 
of his ideals of the city beautiful. It would be difficult to 
exaggerate the influence which Central Park had in forming 
aesthetic taste among the people of New York. By many of 
them who had first regarded it as a foolish piece of extravagance, 
its attraction came slowly to be recognized and with the recog- 
nition came a dawning sense of beauty. To Mr. Green the 
Park was merely the nucleus and the beginning of a compre- 
hensive system of improvement that was to make New York, as 
nearly as a great city might be, worthy of the natural grace of 
its setting and the scenic charm of its environment. But in 
the hordes of real estate speculators and contractors affiliated 
with them who expected to find their profit in the march of 
uptown improvement, there were but few who cared how exten- 
sive was the domain of ugliness and how little opportunity was 
left for the display of architectural or landscape art. Even 
the great city landlords, who had grown rich as the farms and 
market gardens of their fathers were built upon by the lease- 
holders of lots constantly becoming more costly, took very little 
interest in having good taste preside over the making of a city 
whose development had enabled them to become millionaires 
while they slept. The public spirit which would have begotten 
a love for New York for its own sake and a pride in forming 
plans for its adornment was never at quite so low an ebb as 
when the city needed it most. It would have been strange if 
an enthusiasm so genuine and so ardent as that of Mr. Green 

253 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

had not communicated itself to others, but, if full justice is to 
be done to the work he did, due account must be taken of the 
unsympathetic character of the audience that he first addressed. 

It came naturally enough, as the circles widened within which 
were cherished high ideals of municipal pride, that Mr. Green 
should by common consent occupy a unique position. He was 
the father of Greater New York in a larger sense than most of 
those who accorded him the title fully recognized; not only 
because he had in his mind from the first the essential require- 
ments of metropolitan expansion, but because he desired to see 
that expansion governed by rules whose acceptance would have 
made the city beautiful as well as great. That aesthetic con- 
siderations should have had to yield so uniformly to demands 
regarded as imperatively practical, is merely an illustration of 
the difficulty of making the growth of a great city anything 
more than an expression of the dominant characteristics of its 
people. The cult of beauty was, and is, at best, an avocation 
of the few; the effort to make money go as far as it can with little 
or no regard for harmony of design or indeed for anything but 
pure utility, has been the controlling force in making New York 
what it is. But the result would have been even less satis- 
factory, save for the pioneer labor of Mr. Green and the work of 
those who imbibed his spirit and have nourished and developed 
his Ideals. 

There is in the history of the bridge over the Harlem at One 
Hundred and Eighty-first Street a curious epitome of the work 
of improvement to which Mr. Green devoted so many years 
of his life. The bridge was an essential part of the plan outlined 
in his communication, as executive officer of the Board, to his 
fellow Park Commissioners on December 30, 1868. Had the 
work of uptown improvement been left under the control of the 
old Park Board, the bridge would have been built by their direc- 
tion, in virtue of the authority conferred on them by the Act 
of 1869 which had been passed at their request. Had the 
newly created Park Department of 1870 been anything but a 
sham, the b ridged'. would have claimed its attention; had the 
looting of the treasury been less detrimental to the credit of 
the city, and inflicted less of a burden on the taxpayers the 

254 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

project would not have had to wait for the Legislature of 1885 
to make it possible. The building of the bridge was committed 
to the supervision of three commissioners — Messrs. Jacob 
Lorillard, Vernon A. Brown, and David J. King — serving 
without salary, and these commissioners performed their duty 
as faithfully and diligently as if the work had been part of their 
private business. When the New York University crossed the 
Harlem, the river was already disappearing as "a dividing line 
in the life tides of the city," and Dr. RoUin A. Sawyer called 
the move a victory for progress — "for the best in sight of a 
broad vision." He added that "just another such victory gave 
the ground for this later one, when that beautiful Washington 
Bridge was sprung over the narrowest point between the High- 
lands of the Harlem, a genuine work of faith almost poetic in its 
lonely loftiness, when planned and achieved by Andrew H. Green, 
the best friend New York City ever had, and who yet lives to 
do her grander service by delivering millions of men and women 
from dreary bondage to the sluggish and oft slovenly ferry- 
boats. He it was who opened the way to University Heights. 
The old homesteads of Ogden and Carman, of Butler and Mali 
were remote and scarcely accessible to any but the exploring 
foot passer over the Croton Acqueduct bridge. The estate of 
Mr. Mali is now occupied by the University campus with its 
first edifices; the adjoining Butler estate has been purchased 
by the Chancellor as his home. Controlling adjacent property, 
the University is secure in its surroundings, and now it becomes 
a centre of influence and interest imperishable as the foundations 
of these lovely hills." 

The recommendations which during his incumbency of the 
comptrollership and afterward Mr. Green made in regard to 
the relations of the Finance Department to the other branches 
of the City Government seem to partake of the obvious. But 
it was precisely in the most familiar and generally accepted 
rules of ordinary business method that Mr. Green found the 
Comptroller's office and the general accounting system of the 
departments most deficient. There was only too obvious need 
for constant insistence on principles that might seem too rudi- 
mentary for discussion, but which were chiefly honored by 

255 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

persistent neglect. Perhaps no better illustration could be had 
of how difficult it is to establish and maintain familiar rules of 
ordinary business action in the conduct of the business of the 
great corporation which has in charge the political and property 
interests of the City of New York, than a statement bearing 
date of December 30, 191 1, in which Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, 
founder of the Bureau of Municipal Research, undertakes to 
summarize the reforms effected in the conduct of city affairs 
during the preceding two years. Among the items enumerated 
by Mr. Cutting in which there is shown a gain of efficiency 
and trustworthiness are the following: Current expenses are no 
longer mischarged to corporate stock when not specifically 
authorized; revenue bonds are no longer issued against taxes 
considered to be uncollectible; trustworthy statements are 
available of obligations which should be counted as debts within 
the limitations upon the city borrowing power; the work of 
reconciling the various expenditure accounts of the departments 
with those of the Department of Finance has been effectually 
prosecuted with the result of establishing them on a harmonious 
basis; the accounting control over disbursements has been 
strengthened by perfecting the methods according to which 
responsibility may be located in every step of the expenditure 
of city funds; all existing authorizations for public improvements 
on work not begun have been rescinded until a comprehensive 
plan has been worked out through the corporate stock budget, and 
instead of continuing to be a byword of extravagance and 
extortion city advertising has furnished one of the best instances 
of retrenchment — $392,000 in two years. 

All this has a very familiar sound to those familiar with the 
principles of municipal administration for which Mr. Green 
labored in season and out of season nearly forty years before 
the date of Mr. Cutting's record of recent reforms. In a com- 
munication dated October 13, 1874, Mr. Green said: "I have 
bent all my efforts to correct this enormous evil of the creation 
of a floating debt, and have endeavored to establish a system 
that would insure the raising within the year of all the expenses 
of the year. That system, so far as the Finance Department 
can establish it, has now become the settled habit of the Govern- 

256 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

ment, and no new floating indebtedness of any considerable 
amount has been created since I came into office. What has 
been accomplished in this direction has been in spite of the 
precedents of a long period of misgovernment, which die hard 
and slowly; in spite of legislators local and state, at each suc- 
cessive session contriving schemes, at the expense of the city, 
to reward personal favorites or political allies; in spite of the 
most latltudinarian constructions of law, and In spite of the 
loose ideas and methods of administration prevailing in some 
departments. The task has been by no means an easy one, and 
it has invoked the persistent and virulent animosity of those 
in and out of office who were not in sympathy with the motives 
which guided it." Again, in the report he made of his steward- 
ship on his retirement from the Comptroller's office in December, 
1876, he says: "Ever since the present Comptroller took office 
it has been his determined purpose, so far as his own action and 
influence could accomplish it, to establish the rule that each 
year should meet its own obligations; that every department 
should be kept within its appropriations. Great progress has 
been made in this direction in spite of loose interpretations of 
the laws by lawyers, departments and courts. * * * * j ^j^ 
satisfied that all needed improvements, except perhaps in extra- 
ordinary cases not likely to arise, can be carried on without increas- 
ing our city debt one dollar, and that the City Government can be 
properly carried on at a rate of taxation not exceeding if per cent. 
I am satisfied that a Constitutional amendment should be adopted 
limiting the power to contract debt on behalf of the city." 

In the twenty years between 1876 and 1896 there was hardly 
an election for Mayor of New York at which the name of Mr. 
Green was not suggested as a candidate. In the last named 
year there seemed to be a special fitness in the nomination, 
because Mr. Green had then brought to a successful conclusion 
his long contest for the organization of the Greater New York. 
But however fitting might have been the nomination, the task 
to which Mr. Green, as Mayor, would have had to address 
himself was entirely beyond his strength. On January 18, 
1897, the New York Sun made an editorial reference to the 
proposed nomination of Mr. Green for Mayor of Greater New 

257 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

York which will be recognized as an eminently fit contribution 
to this narrative. The essential part of it runs as follows: 

If Mr. Green had been a younger man, he would have been the first candidate 
for the office of Mayor to occur to the conservative citizens of the Greater 
New York. By the common consent of all the forces enlisted on the side of 
order and property against the menace of revolutionary Bryanism, he would 
have been put high upon the Hst of men eligible for leadership. The scheme 
of the consolidation of municipalities which will make New York on the first 
of January next the second among the great capitals of the world, was conceived 
and originated in the broad, and statesmanlike mind of Mr. Green. The 
realization of that idea, definitely formulated in his imagination many years 
ago, is largely due to the long, patient, intelligent and sagacious efforts of 
Mr. Green. Except for him, it is not too much to say, there would have been 
no Greater New York in this generation, though that the consolidation would 
come eventually was inevitable. 

Mr. Green has studied the subject in all its aspects, and with the aid of a 
familiarity with the history of New York and the conditions of the problem, 
which is equalled by that of no other citizen. For many years he has been 
the foremost authority on the laws affecting New York and the methods and 
restrictions of its government, and consequently no Mayor has entered office 
without seeking his counsel. He is the fittest man for the first Mayor of 
Greater New York within all its limits, provided that his strength is still 
equal to the arduous task the office would impose on him, and he is made the 
representative of the forces of civilization against the barbarism of Bryanism. 

Mr. Green is now seventy-five years old [actually seventy-seven]. That 
used to be looked upon as a great age, for it exceeds by five years the Psalmist's 
span of life, but it is no longer a great age. Men foremost in the affairs of the 
world at the present time, in politics, literature, business, even arms, are as 
old as Mr. Green and some of them are still older. So far as mere years are 
concerned, there is nothing to disqualify him for public duty, no matter how 
responsible. His long experience of life and public affairs rather renders him 
the more competent for it. Mr. Green suffered last year from a serious and 
a protracted illness, which, it was feared by his friends, would wholly incapaci- 
tate him from further activity as a public man; and, in fact, he was obliged 
to desist for a long period from the labors and the intellectual occupations in 
which his ceaselessly industrious life had been spent. He was an invalid, 
and it seemed likely that he would remain an invalid, or at least a valetudinarian, 
who would be debarred from trying and continuous activity throughout the 
rest of his career. He was actually prevented from giving the laborious and 
assiduous attention he had hoped to give to the preparation of the new charter, 
of the commission to frame which he had been made the President. 

Those who are most familiar with Mr. Green report, however, that since 
last summer he has been restored almost wholly to his normal strength; and 
there is no doubt that he is attending to his private affairs and to the public 
interests which appeal to his most laudable public spirit with his old time 
assiduity. He does not count himself out of the world of spirited activity, 
but remains in it with undiminished ardor, with keenness of observation 
undiminished, and with tireless industry in pursuit of the ends he has laid 
out for himself. In fine, Mr. Green's friends seem to regard him as fully able 

258 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

to perform the duties of Mayor; and as we have said, if he himself is of that 
opinion, it may be assumed that the confidence is justified, for he is not a 
vain man. He has too much else to think about to have time to waste in thinking 
about himself. 

Unfortunately, the serious and protracted illness from which 
Mr. Green suffered in the summer of 1896 had seriously under- 
mined his constitution and greatly lessened his reserve of energy. 
For the six years that remained of his life there was no apparent 
diminution of the old vigor in dealing with the public questions 
which most strongly appealed to him, but it became increasingly 
obvious that his acceptance of new responsibilities was impossible. 
He had a complimentary reception from the first Municipal 
Assembly elected under Consolidation on March 22, 1898, which 
he made the occasion of some incisive remarks about the intent 
of the new charter of the Greater New York. There were not 
wanting those who agreed with the New York Tribune that it 
was "to be regretted that the realization of the project which 
has been the subject of universal discussion is contemplated 
with profound satisfaction only by those who expect to derive 
immediate personal profit from the distribution of an enormous 
public revenue." Mr. Green told the members of the Council 
that it was for them to insist that the administration of the many 
and much-neglected sources of income of the city should be 
such as to increase its revenue, "to the end that the burden of 
taxation may be diminished and that those privileges in our 
streets which have been so lavishly conferred, and which create 
such princely fortunes for individuals who conceal their identity 
within the form of corporations, shall hereafter be managed 
in the interest and for the convenience of the people rather than 
for private gain." He pointed out that the provision of the 
charter which retains these profitable franchises within the 
ownership and control of the public authorities was of great 
value, and he expressed a hope that these authorities would 
see to it that those who had obtained municipal concessions 
should furnish greater facilities at less cost to the people, and 
that the streets should no longer, as they had recently been, be 
placed at the disposal of the corporations. But in his attitude 
to this as to other vital questions of civic economy, Mr. Green 

259 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



was still some years ahead of his time, and these remarks of 
his merely accentuate what is, after all, the crowning demon- 
stration of his career — the inestimable value which a man at 
once capable, far-seeing, and unselfish is to any community that 
will follow his advice. 

In the years that remained to him of life Mr. Green was 
forgetful of none of the public interests which had engaged the 
attention of his mature years. The working out of the great 
experiment of governing the consolidated municipality, which 
had come in response to his thirty years of effort, left a good deal 
to desire. But he was careful, from the first, to discriminate 
between the purely physical and what ma.y be called the moral 
aspects of the problem. Being asked on the eve of the birth 
of the new city: "Is the consolidation a realization of your 
original plan?" He replied: "So far as the area is concerned 
it is. Of course, the realization of the plan in relation to the 
city's government depends altogether on an intelligent adminis- 
tration. If the city is governed in the spirit in which it was 
conceived, the realization of the plan will be obtained." His 
scrap-books show that he followed with the closest attention 
the dangers that continued to threaten the integrity of Niagara 
Falls, against which the American Scenic and Historic Preser- 
vation Society never ceased to protest. In other departments 
of the activity of the society Mr. Green kept up an interest 
as active as his failing health would permit. 

Up to the day, Friday, November 13, 1903, when the bullet 
of an insane assassin ended his life, there was no evidence of 
impaired mental vigor. His protest against the expenditure 
of ^101,000,000 on a new barge canal was as vigorous and closely 
reasoned as any of the papers written in the maturity of his 
powers. The last letter which the writer of this memoir had 
from Mr. Green referred to his active interest in the work of 
securing fair treatment under the barbarous administration of 
our exclusion law for educated Chinamen visiting this country. 
Returning from Washington with a reassuring message on this 
subject the recipient of the letter was met by the news of the 
death of its writer. 

A tragedy more pitiful than the murder of Mr. Green it 

260 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

would be difficult to conceive. The murderer was an ignorant 
and depraved negro whose mind had become unsettled by- 
brooding over wrongs which he fancied had been inflicted on 
him by an abandoned woman with whom he was infatuated. 
The woman had drawn into her toils an aged white man of 
wealth and position, between whom and Mr. Green there was a 
superficial physical resemblance. The negro, Cornelius M. 
Williams by name, confessed to the doctors who examined him 
under the orders of the court, that he had prayed to God to 
deliver him from the annoyance of the woman's defamation, 
and to enable him to punish in some way the persons who were 
inciting this imaginary persecution. But, coming to the con- 
clusion that God would not help him, he prayed to the devil 
who appeared to him in various forms, and with whom he made 
a bargain to surrender his soul if the devil would allow him to 
be revenged on his tormentors. Into the meshes of this wretched 
intrigue was dragged the stainless name of Mr. Green, by a 
series of coincidences which verify the adage that truth is stranger 
than fiction. The patron of the colored woman was within a 
year or two of the same age as Andrew H. Green and had white 
hair and a white beard similar to his. Moreover, the woman 
had in the fall of 1889 purchased a house in a fashionable section 
of the city, and lived a secluded life next door to a well-known 
family of Greens on whom Andrew H. Green occasionally 
called. According to Williams' own statement his efforts to 
identify the man of whom he was insanely jealous had, by a 
muddled process of reasoning, led him to pick out from the 
City Directory the address of Andrew H. Green and to lie in 
wait for him near his house. When he accosted Mr. Green and 
the latter naturally disclaimed any knowledge of him, Williams 
produced a revolver and fired five shots at Mr. Green, two taking 
effect, one in the temple. Death was instantaneous. The man 
for whom Mr. Green was mistaken said in a statement to the 
press: "I have not the slightest doubt that it was my relationship 
with the woman and the resemblance I bore to the late Andrew 
H. Green which cost that unfortunate gentleman his life. There 
can be no question but that Cornelius Williams, the negro who 
murdered Mr. Green, thought he was shooting me." 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

It was cause for deep satisfaction to all of Mr. Green's family 
and friends when, a few months later, a law-suit brought by 
the infatuated octogenarian against his negro protegee for the 
restitution of property which he alleged she had obtained from 
him by blackmail laid the whole matter, in its true bearings, 
before the public. The title of the original suit is J. R. Piatt 
V. Hannah Elias (44 Miscellaneous, 401, Special Term, July, 
1904). The final disposition of the suit may be found in 186, 
New York 374, November, 1905. 

Probably the attitude of the public and press after this dis- 
closure may be best indicated by quoting the words of District 
Attorney Jerome in the New York World of June 5, 1904: 
"What a commentary on the mutability of fame! Here was 
a white-haired man of eighty-four years, whose personal char- 
acter and long life of public service made his name monumental 
in the second city of the world. From youth to old age he worked 
for the betterment of New York, until his noble achievements 
made his name a part of the city's glory. He lived and moved 
in the very eye of the public and was known as a man of stainless 
and frugal private life. In an hour, on the word of a crazy 
murderer, this great reputation, the reward of a whole lifetime 
devoted to public service, seemed to count for nothing with a 
large part of the people. How true it is that the only thing 
a man can safely work for is his own self-respect! Never was 
that fact more terribly illustrated than in the case of Andrew 
H. Green, the last man in New York against whom an insinuation 
of private baseness could find any justification." 

The news of Mr. Green's death made a profound sensation 
throughout the city and country and eulogies of his life were 
published in nearly every newspaper in the United States as 
well as by many in Europe. The Mayor of the city, Mr. Seth 
Low, proposed a civic funeral, and although the family, in view 
of the simplicity of Mr. Green's taste, declined the honor, a 
detail of policemen, standing shoulder to shoulder, made a 
lane through which the carriages passed slowly from 91 Park 
Avenue to the Brick Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue and 
Thirty-seventh Street. The funeral services on November 17th 
were simple but impressive, and were conducted by the Rev. 

262 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

Leighton Williams, Pastor of Amity Baptist Church, a lifelong 
friend of Mr. Green's, and Doctor Richards, Pastor of the Brick 
Church. The pallbearers were Mayor Low, Comptroller Grout, 
Rev. Dr. MacCracken, Chancellor of New York University; 
Frederick W. Devoe, Elbridge T. Gerry, Mornay Williams, 
John Bigelow, John L. Cadwalader, Charles M. Dow, Edward 
Uhl, Henry E. Howland, and Samuel Parsons, Jr. Following 
the funeral a number of memorial services were held, among 
them being that of the Women's Auxiliary of the American 
Scenic and Historic Preservation Society at Fraunces' Tavern, 
December 4th; by the American Scenic and Historic Pres- 
ervation Society at the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, December 9th; and by the City of New York at the 
City Hall, December 30, 1903. The latter was held in pursu- 
ance of a message sent to the Board of Aldermen by Mayor 
Low on November 17th, in which he said that it became the 
city to make such record as It could of its imperishable ob- 
ligations to the great citizen whose death it was called upon to 
mourn. 

It is already obvious that the perspective of years can only 
heighten the appreciation of the public services of Andrew H. 
Green. With every year that has elapsed since his death, 
the loss which it entailed directly on the City of New York, and 
indirectly on a much larger constituency, has been more and 
more clearly realized. His vast and varied knowledge of the 
city's needs, his conspicuously sound judgment, the absolute 
disinterestedness of his character and the unsullied purity of his 
motives — all combined to Invest him with such an influence 
for the advancement of great schemes of public Improvement as 
no one else has been able to exercise. The weight that his opinion 
carried with men In public life, and with the public generally, 
cannot be duplicated, because the personality behind It was 
unique. Of all the men of his time, there was none who brought 
to the service of his fellow-citizens so remarkable a combination 
of qualities and aptitudes as the Father of the Greater New 
York. The breadth and variety of his early training would have 
been less fruitful but for his rare capacity to absorb and apply 
the lessons of a highly diversified experience, and but for the 

263 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

clearness of vision that could discern half a century ago the 
full measure of the wants of to-day. 

The persuasive power that he exercised in securing the 
accomplishment of objects which he had at heart, was partly 
temperamental, but was more largely the result of a thorough 
comprehension of every phase of the particular question with 
which he had for the moment to deal. His expository methods were 
always painstaking, always adapted to ordinary comprehension, 
and were never predicated on any assumption of infallibility. 
The wide and pervasive personal influence which he wielded 
in his later years, was entirely dissociated from any official 
position. He held no public office and had no hope or desire 
for any. Yet, as one who knew him intimately wrote at the 
time of his death: "He was not a leader in any powerful political 
organization; he had no pecuniary or honorary rewards to offer. 
Yet that plain, quiet citizen, past the ordinary span of human 
life, sitting in his Broadway office and there talking or otherwise 
communicating with one influential personage after another, 
was able to do more for the accomplishment of such a public 
object as the establishment of the Niagara Reservation or the 
creation of The Greater New York than any public official in 
this State, or, one might almost say, any company of men 
who could be assembled in this town." 

To the citizen of New York, it may be said: "Would you see 
his monument, look around you!" having well in mind the 
intangible no less than the tangible results of his beneficent life. 
But to do adequate justice to the essential greatness of the man, 
it has also to be remembered that his place remains, and seems 
likely so remain, unfilled. And thus it is that there arises from 
time to time in the minds of those who knew him best the invo- 
cation, "thou should'st be living at this hour. New York has 
need of thee!" The garnered fruits of his experience are common 
property, and the broad lines of metropolitan expansion for 
which he argued so cogently and so unweariedly are accepted 
without dispute, but we may partly measure the value of the 
authority and influence of the man to whom we owe these gifts 
by the poignancy of the regret that he is no longer here. 

Four days before Mr. Green was taken away, while attending 

264 



as trustee the annual meeting of the Isabella Heimath, he made 
a briet address, closmg with this sentence which furnishes a 
keynote to his whole career: "Let us then continue with zeal 
the work here so auspiciously begun, and secure to ourselves 
that richest of rewards — the satisfaction of having done what 
we could do to better the condition of those about us " 



THE END 



APPENDIX 



The following report bearing date of May, 1855, was submitted 
to the Board of Education of the City of New York by a com- 
mittee of which Mr. Green was chairman. The report is entirely 
his work, being accepted and approved by his associates without 
change or amendment: 

The State of New York comprised, as shown by the report of the Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction in 1854, 11,798 school districts. By the law 
of 1851, as is above-mentioned, one third of the school money is apportioned 
among these districts, so that each district shall have an equal sum, without 
any reference to the number attending school or to the population of the 
district. 

The County of St. Lawrence, with a population of 68,617, and an assessed 
valuation of $14,561,665, is divided into 465 districts, and receives of the 
one third $13,844.45, while the City of New York with 515,547 population 
(census of 1850), and an assessed valuation of $413,631,432, has but 218 districts, 
and receives but $6,490.51. The following is a table of the population of, and 
the sum assessed on, each of thirteen counties of the state. 

AMOUNT RECEIVED 



Delaware 

Otsego . 

St. Lawrence 

Steuben 

Chenango 

Washington 

Cortland 

Lewis . 

Broome 

Wyoming 

Schoharie 

Essex . 

Alleghany 



Here are thirteen counties, having a population (census of 1850), of 515,387; 
being 160 less than that of the City of New York, which receive of this one 

266 





OF ONE THIRD ACC D 


POPULATION 


TO DISTRICTS 


39,834 


$ 9,825.10 


48,638 


9,795-34 


68,617 


13,84445 


58,358 


10,688.53 


40,311 


9,051.00 


44,750 


7,264.62 


25,140 


5,418.68 


24,564 


5,240.03 


30,660 


6,014.05 


•31,981 


5,775-99 


33,548 


5,984-39 


31,148 


3,716.42 


37,808 


7,930.16 


515,387 


$102,548.76 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 



third, $102,548.76, while New York receives $6,490.51. In 1854, an act was 
passed, constituting every seventy-five persons, between the ages of four and 
twenty-one, residing in the City of Poughkeepsie, a district for the purpose 
of distributing the school moneys. If the same number was made to constitute 
a district in this city, we should have 1,715, instead of 218 districts, and be 
entitled to about $50,000, of the one third of school moneys, instead of $6,490.59. 

The injustice of this distribution is so glaring, that it is useless to multiply 
words about it. It is a rule that is not fit to remain upon the statute books, 
and it becomes a serious question for the authorities of this city to determine 
whether the excess that has been paid by the city since 1851 should not be 
refunded to its treasury. If any part of the school moneys are to be distributed 
according to districts, they should be equalized either in number of population 
or of children under twenty-one residing in the districts, or of children attending 
school, so that a district in the country, with fifty scholars, shall not receive 
as much money as one in the City of New York with 2,500. 

The following table shows the amount of the $800,000 raised by tax from the 
same counties mentioned in the above table, and the sum apportioned to them: 

APPORTIONMENT 
VALUATION 

Delaware .... $ 8,675,189 



Otsego 

St. Lawrence 

Steuben 

Chenango . 

Washington 

Cortland 

Lewis 

Broome 

Wyoming . 

Schoharie . 

Essex 

Alleghany . 



11,988,940 
14,561,665 
17,634,612 
11,808,564 
15,848,549 

5,778,521 
5,615,000 
7,063,810 
9,620,612 
7,621,258 
4,672,148 
9,330,424 



$130,309,312 
Total amount of tax raised from these counties 
Apportionment to these counties of f . 
Apportionment to these counties of J . 
Apportionment of library money . 



TAXED 

$> 5,403-05 
7,466.89 
9,069.23 
10,683.13 
7,410.63 
9,870.73 
3,598.96 
3,497-11 
4,39946 
5,767-65 
4,036.45 
2,909.89 
5,811.14 

$80,224.32 



TO POPULATION 

$ 9,045.21 

11,044.35 

15,581.05 

13,258.32 

9,153-52 

10,161.54 

5,708.60 

5,577-80 

6,962.05 

7,262.02 

7,617.83 

7,072.86 

8,585.16 

$117,030.31 

$ 80,224.32 

117,030.31 

102,548.76 

9,151.56 



Total apportionment ....... $228,730.63 

Thirteen counties, with a population of 515,388, receive $228,739.63, and 
raise by taxes $80,224.32. 

New York, with a population of 515,547, receives $132,711.68, and raises 
by taxes $257,616.11. 

This city has for many years sustained its own schools. They are, in the 
widest sense of the term, free. The cost of this, in 1854, was (exclusive of a 
deficiency of $198,091.96) $776,973.38. 

267 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



Is not this enough for taxpayers of this tax-ridden city to bear without 

contributing to the schools of the state the further sum of about $ 257,616.11 
Making a total raised in this city, for the schools of the city and 

state of ......... . 1,034,589.49 

From which, deducting the amount received from the common 

school fund and state in 1854 ...... 132,711.68 

Leaves the actual cost of this city for schools of, and state 

in 1854 901,877.81 

and including the deficiency above mentioned of . 198,091.96 



This sum will be greatly increased in 1856 

The County Clerk has already been notified that the proportion 

of the ^800,000 to be raised by this city for 1856 is 
The requisition of this Board for 1856 is . . . 



$1,099,969.77 

271,639.40 
1^023,354.26 



Making a total for 1856 of ...... . $1,294,993.66 

The present Comptroller of this city has repeatedly and urgently since hts 
accession to office called the attention of the Common Council to the injustice 
occasioned by the provision of the act of 1851, but no action has yet been taken 
on the subject. 

The plan of supporting the schools of the state by a general tax on the 
property of the state having been partially adopted, it is sought by the recom- 
mendation of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to extend its operation, 
and consequently to add to the injustice so palpably done to this city by 
increasing the general tax and preserving mainly the same plan of distribution. 
At the last session of the Legislature a bill was introduced which provided 
for a tax of three fourths of a mill per dollar upon the whole taxable property 
of the state, thereby raising over $1,000,000 instead of $800,000. All taxes 
of this character work unequally upon this city, and they should be vigorously 
resisted by its representatives in the legislative body. 

It may not be amiss to say here, that this city will be called on this year 
to pay toward the other departments of the state government, exclusive of 
schools, the sum of ....... , $608,747.84 

the result of a mill and a quarter tax imposed by the Legislature 
at its last session, and adding this sum to the moneys contrib- 
uted by this city to the state for schools, viz. . . . 171,639.40 

gives us as the total contribution of this city, toward the support 
of the state government, the sum of . . . . $780,387.24 

The Normal Schools of this city afford sufficient facilities for all residing in 
this city who desire to attend them. They are maintained by the city, at an 
expense paid by the city, in 1854, of $4,994.30, and which will probably, in 
1856, reach $10,000. 

268 



OF ANDREW H A S W E L L GREEN 

The Normal Schools of the state are maintained at an expense to the state 
of about $12,000 per annum, of which this city contributes an undue proportion. 
This city sends but few, if any, pupils to the Normal School of the state, or 
does not require the advantages which it is said to afford, and ought to be 
relieved of any contribution to its support. Out of the 2,262 who are stated 
in the report of the Executive Committee of the State Normal School to have 
enjoyed its advantage up to September, 1854, or during a period of about — 
years, there were but twelve ladies and nine gentlemen graduated from the 
City of New York. 

Keeping in view the fact that the city sustained its own schools — day» 
evening, and normal — that they are free to every child residing within its 
limits — not only free as to instruction, but as to school books, fuel, light, and 
school apparatus — your committee deems it but just that this city should 
be wholly exempt from any contribution for the support of schools in other 
portions of the state. Other cities would doubtless readily join in a suitable 
presentation of this subject to the Legislature, to relieve themselves from 
the consequences of the same system of which this city has a right to com- 
plain, and your committee will not permit themselves to doubt that the 
representatives from all portions of the state will readily concur in such an 
amendment of the law as shall be just, and rectify the existing inequalities 
and abuses. 

Whatever may be said, or may have been said by those officers of the state 
communicating officially with the public, as to the glories of the free school 
law and its general acceptability to the people, yet it is nevertheless the fact, 
that the free school law of 1849 has not been, and could not be carried out in 
the country districts of the state, and the clamor for its repeal was strong 
evidence of its unpopularity. The plan of supporting the schools, up to the 
time of its adoption, was well tried and acceptable, and the heavy vote of the 
city in favor of that law, by which it was forced upon the country, created a 
retaliatory spirit, which was prominent in begetting the law of 185 1. 

The law of 1849 sought to compel the country districts to tax themselves 
to support their own schools: this law was repealed. The law of 1851 compels 
this city to contribute largely the avails of a direct tax for the support of schools 
in other sections of the state, and ought to be repealed. 

A prominent objection to the system, prior to 1849, was, that it was repulsive 
to the feelings of an indigent person to be directly exempted from the payment 
of taxes for the education of his children. The act of 185 1 does not avoid 
this difficulty; it was obviated in 1849, but restored in 1851. The City of 
New York has nobly done her part in the cause of free education. She has 
put her hand to the plough, and will not look back. But it is unjust that 
she should be, in addition to her own burdens, compelled to raise a large pro- 

269 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

portion of all the moneys raised by tax by the state for educational purposes 
in other parts of the state. 

Numerous modes of amending the law have occurred to your committee. 
The principal alterations, some one or more of which are required so effect 
the desired object, would be: 

1st. An equalization of the districts, as to number of children residing within 
their respective limits or as to the number of children attending school. 

2d. The distribution of the moneys raised by the state and the common 
school fund among the counties, according to the number of children actually 
attending school within the respective counties or according to their population. 

3d. An entire exemption of the City of New York from any tax for the sup- 
port of the schools of the other portions of the state or the expense of their 
superintendence. 

Your committee believe that it would be preferable to defer preparation of 
an act to be proposed to the Legislature until an interchange of views can be 
had between the financial department of this city and the educational depart- 
ment of this state. 

Your committee therefore, for the present, respectfully recommend that the 
Board of Supervisors, Mayor and Comptroller of this city be requested to unite 
with this board in a memorial to the Legislature, setting forth the grievances 
above-mentioned, and demanding such amendment of the law as shall be 
effectual in securing the relief that the circumstances require. 

And. H. Green, ^ 
Jedediah Miller, > Committee. 
Isaac Phillips, J 

TAXING THE CITY TO EDUCATE THE COUNTRY 

To the Board 0/ Education: 
The committee to whom was referred the following preamble and resolution : 

Whreas, the present method of apportioning the tax annually levied by the state for the 
support of Common Schools, and the method of distributing the moneys raised by such tax, 
and from the Common School fund of the state, are such as to charge upon some localities of 
the state those burdens that justly should be borne by others, and work great injustice, partic- 
ularly to the taxpayers of this city. And although it may not be possible to effect an appor- 
tionment and distribution of the taxes for Common School purposes, so that they .shall bear 
upon all parts of the state with exact equality, yet, in the judgment of this Board, such a 
basis may be adopted as will effect an approximation to equality in taxation and distribution, 
and remove from this city the burthen to which it is now unjustly subjected: therefore — 

Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to consider this subject, and, in conjunction 
with the other educational and financial departmets of this city and state, or otherwise, to pro- 
cure such modification of the existing laws concerning the raising of moneys for the support of 

270 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 



common schools, and the distribution of such money and the common school fund as shall 
effectually relieve the taxpayers of this city from an unequal burthen of taxation, and that 
the subject be referred to a special committee; 

.Respectfully report, that the common school fund had its origin at an early- 
period in the history of the state, and was the offspring of a conviction on the 
part of statesmen and thoughtful men of that early day, that the establishment 
of a system which should afford the child of every citizen the opportunities 
of a common school education, was indispensable to the perpetuity and purity 
of republican institutions. 

This fund, beginning with the net proceeds of vacant and unappropriated 
lands set apart for this purpose in 1805, with an income in 18 10 of ^26,000, 
has increased by various additions to ^2,425,411.27 in 1855, with a revenue 
of $145,000. 

Twice has this fund been the subject of constitutional enactment, and 
at this day so thoroughly impressed is the great mass of the people of this state 
with its importance to the well-being of the commonwealth, that any proposi- 
tion to divert it from the purpose for which it was originally established, or 
to impair its amount or efficiency, would meet with signal and unanimous 
reprobation. From the time of its establishment up to the year 185 1, nearly 
half a century, the method of distribution of this fund among the various parts 
of the state has been mainly the same, namely, upon the basis of population 
of the respective counties, and upon this basis the whole state was agreed 
as resulting, as nearly as the nature of things would admit, in justice to all 
portions of the state. 

This fund was the basis of the earlier common school operations of the state; 
encouraging and aiding the country districts, it stimulated them to exertion 
for the education of the children within their respective limits, and with the 
aid it afforded, added to the other means raised by tax of the inhabitants 
of various districts, the common schools have been successfully conducted 
from their foundation up to the year 1849. It will be perceived, from the 
language of the Report of the Commissioners, appointed in 1812, to report 
a system for the organization and establishment of common schools, that it 
was no part of their intention to support the schools solely from the funds 
of the state, but merely to afford them aid in their then feeble condition; that 
language is as follows: 

"It will, however, be evident to the Legislature that the funds appropriated 
from the state for the support of the common school system will alone be 
very inadequate. But it is hardly to be imagined that the Legislature intended 
the state should support the whole expense of so great an establishment. 
The object of the Legislature, as understood by the Commissioners, was to 
rouse the public attention to the important subject of education, and by 

271 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

adopting a system of common schools, in the expense of which the state would 
largely participate, to bring instruction within the reach and means of the 
humblest citizen." 

A few years preceding the meeting of the constitutional convention of 1846, 
the subject of making the schools of the state entirely free, or, in other words, 
of supporting the schools entirely from taxation of property, was suggested. 

Propositions were advanced in the convention for its accomplishment, and 
were urgently but unsuccessfully advocated. The subject was, however, 
kept before the public by the educational departments, till, in the year 1849. 
was passed an act establishing free schools throughout the state, which, having 
been submitted to the popular vote, was adopted by a large majority. Its 
provisions, however, were very obnoxious to the country districts, and the 
question of its repeal was also submitted to the people, who, by as decided a 
majority, refused to repeal it. 

The provisions of this act were as follows: Common schools, in the several 
school districts in this state were declared free to all persons residing in the 
district over five and under twenty-one years of age. 

The Board of Supervisors were to cause to be collected from their respective 
counties, in the same manner as county taxes, a sum equal to the amount 
of state school moneys apportioned to such counties, and to apportion the 
same among the towns and cities, in the same manner as moneys received 
from the state are apportioned. 

They were also to cause to be levied and collected from each of the towns 
in their respective counties, in the same manner as other town taxes, a sum 
equal to the amount of state school money apportioned to each town respectively. 

The trustees of the district were authorized to make certain expenditures 
for teachers, etc. 

The country districts still continued restive under this law. The Governor 
in his annual message thus alluded to it: 

"An essential change was made by the law under consideration, by imposing 
the entire burden of the schools upon property, in the form of a tax, without 
reference to the direct benefits derived by the taxpayers. The provisions 
of the act for carrying this plan into effect have produced oppressive inequali- 
ties and loud complaints." 

The Superintendent of Common Schools in 1851 remarks that: 

"Appeals were assiduously made to the cupidity of the heavy taxpayers, 
their interests sought to be arrayed against that of their less favored brethren 
and against the interests of their children; their passions, stimulated by the 
real inequalities as well as fancied injustice of the burdens imposed by the new 
law, were readily enlisted against every attempt to carry it into operation; 
numerous petitions were sent to the Legislature praying for its repeal, or for 

272 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEK 

such amendment as might render it more generally acceptable. It seems 
obvious that notwithstanding the fact that the law of 1 849 was adopted by 
a very large popular vote, and that its repeal was discountenanced by an equally 
decisive vote, yet the provisions of the law could not be carried out." 

The features of the law compelling the holders of property to bear the 
burdens of educating the children of those without any taxable property, 
was really the insuperable objection to its execution; and however much 
officials of the state may have sought by indirect and involved language to 
preserve a seeming position of approval of the principle of this law, yet the 
fact is clear that the law could not be executed, and the plan of compelling 
the taxable property of this state to bear all the burdens of education has 
never yet met the sanction of the people of the state, outside of the larger cities. 

Various efforts were made to allay the dissatisfaction occasioned by this 
law of 1849; litigation ensued, and it was finally, in some of its features, declared 
unconstitutional by the highest court of the state. 

In 1850, attempts were made, but without success, to obviate the objection- 
able features of the act of 1849, and at the same time to afford aid to the weak 
districts of the country. 

In 185 1, an act was passed, under which the funds for the support of the 
common schools of the state, are now mainly raised and distributd. To 
the injustice in the method of laying the tax authorized by this law, and to 
the unfairness and gross inequality of distributing the moneys raised by this 
act and the Common School F'und, the report of your committee is mainly 
directed. 

It will be observed that two distinct funds are referred to: 

The Common School Fund. 

The $800,000 raised by the act of 1851, by general tax. 

1st. As to the Common School Fund: 

The legislature, departing from the rule of apportionment which had so 
long prevailed, and which was so satisfactory in its results, adopted a method 
of apportionment which violates every well-recognized rule of distribution of 
a fund which belongs equally to the whole state. 

The act of 1851 authorizes the sum of $800,000 to be raised by tax on the 
taxable property of the state, and distributes this sum, as well as the common 
school fund, both amounting in 1854 (with $165,000 from the income of the 
United States deposit fund) to the sum of $1,110,000, in the following manner: 
Two thirds thereof to the various counties of the state, according to their 
respective population, and the remaining one third equally among the school 
districts of the state. There is one rule for laying the tax, namely, on the 
assessed valuation of the property in the counties, and another rule for the 
distribution of the avails of the tax, namely, that of population of the counties 

273 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

as to two thirds, and of districts as to the other third. It will be readily- 
perceived that this plan, in most of its features, operates against the more 
thickly settled portions of the state, where property is aggregated in large 
amounts. 

For the year 1855, the amount of the $800,000 to be levied of the city of New 

York is $271,639.40 

The proportion of this amount returned to the city, according to the rule of 

distribution above mentioned, is about . .... loo.oco.oo 



Leaving the sum of . . . . ... $171,639.40 

which is raised in this city by direct tax, and distributed to other portions 
of the state — a tax which is characterized by the Comptroller of this city in 
his report of 1855, as "an exaction on this city, unjust and unrighteous in all 
its bearings." Many counties escape their equal proportion of taxation by 
the fact that the valuations upon which taxes are levied are unequal: in some 
counties, the valuations are one third and sometimes one half less than in others, 
and in the City of New York the valuations are probably higher than any other 
county of the state. 

In this city the zeal and industry of the tax officers in discovering all taxable 
property, and the high rates of valuation upon which the taxes are laid, are 
probably equalled by no other county in the state, and are such as to seriously 
affect the growth and prosperity of this city, and to render the proportion of 
the tax levied on the property of this city unjust, unequal and intolerable. 

On the subject of the $800,000 tax, authorized by the law of 185 1, the Secre- 
tary of State, in his report as Superintendent of Schools, makes the following 
remarks: "Under the present defective administered system of assessment, 
however, such a tax will operate very unequally in different sections of the 
state. The standard of valuation, both of real and personal property, varies, 
as is well known, in nearly every county in the state; while in some it is esti- 
mated at its fair market value, in others it is assessed at three fourths, two 
thirds, and sometimes as low as one half its actual value. If, therefore, the 
existing standard of valuation is to be made the basis of apportionment of the 
proposed tax, it is manifest that a very unjust and oppressive burden will 
be cast upon those counties where the assessment is in strict accordance with 
the provisions of the law for the benefit of those sections in which its require- 
ments are evaded by an arbitrary standard of valuation. The distribution 
of money when raised, serves likewise to render this disproportion still more 
manifest, that being upon the population, according to last preceding census 
of the respective counties. 

With the exception that the generally acknowledged loose and incomplete 

274 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

manner in which the census of the city was taken works also against a fair 
distribution of the school moneys, this is all that need here be said upon the 
subject of the distribution of the two thirds of the Common School fund, and 
of the two thirds of the $800,000. An entirely different rule of raising and 
distributing those moneys ought to be adopted. 

REPORT ON FIVE YEARs' SERVICE AS COMPTROLLER 

Mr. Green's term as Comptroller closed with the induction of Mr. John 
Kelly into the office on December 7, 1876. On the same day Mr. Green 
issued the following statement addressed to Mr. William A, Booth and other 
prominent citizens who had been more or less familiar with his work, setting 
forth in brief what had been accomplished during his headship of the Finance 
Department. 

Gentlemen: 

The interest you have long manifested in the improvement of the affairs 
of the city, leads me to offer for your perusal the following very brief notes 
of progress: 

the city debt 

Comparative Statement of the City Debt as of September 16, 1871, and 

November 20, 1876 

The funded debt, November 20, 1876, less 

the sinking fund, was .... $91,102,375.47 

The floating debt (as nearly as can be ascer- 
tained) existing November 20, 1876, not 
estimating loss arising from non-collection 
of assessments, will not exceed . . 2,500,000.00 

Total debt, November 20, 1876 . . . $93,602,375.47 

The funded debt September 16, 1871, when 
Comptroller Green took office, less the sink- 
ing fund, was ..... 62,696,825.03 

The floating debt at the same day, as since 

ascertained and liquidated was . . 21,038,651.87 

Total actual debt of September 16, 1871, so 

far as ascertained and liquidated . . 83,735,476.90 

There has been paid since September 16, 1871, 
for land for the city and permanent im- 
provements, being an increase of city prop- 
erty, $29,223,868.40, and yet the net debt 
has increased during this period, more than 
five years, only $9,866,898.57 

The old floating debt of 1871, and prior years yet unliquidated, is not in- 
cluded in either side of the above statement. It is impossible to state its 
amount. Much of it is in litigation, and probably some of it has not yet come 
to light. 

In addition to the above indebtedness, the City of New York is liable for 

275 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



the funded debt of the annexed towns of Westchester County, amounting 
so far as ascertained at this date, to the sum of ^1,245,745.80. 



ASSESSMENT BONDS 

Total assessment bonds outstanding Novem- 
ber 20, 1876 $22,396,460.00 

September i, 1871 11,824,500.00 

An increase of . $10,571,960.00 

The outstanding and uncollectible assess- 
ments amounted November 20, 1876, to $10,907,545.06 

The advance to contractors, etc., on account 
of work in progress, and for which assess- 
ments are to be levied .... ii>35i>336-3S 

Making a total assessment to be levied and 
collected of $22,258,881.41 

It will be seen that if all these assessments are collected they will produce 
an amount very nearly adequate to pay all the Assessment Bonds outstanding. 
But it is to be remembered that there is a number of lawyers who make a 
living by raising technical objections to get rid of assessments which should 
be paid by the property benefited by them. The plan of these lawyers is to 
make an agreement with the owner for, say, 25 per cent, of the amount of the 
assessment, if it is thrown from the owner, who should pay it, upon the tax- 
payers, who should not pay it. A considerable amount of these assessments 
is upon property owned by the city, or charged upon the city by some act of 
the Legislature. These, of course, will not be productive of any means toward' 
paying the Assessment Bonds. Perhaps a fair estimate of the net yield of 
these assessments would be $13,000,000. 



REVENUE BONDS 

The revenue bonds outstanding September 

16, 1 87 1 $22,766,200.00 

The revenue bonds outstanding November 

20, 1876 13,604,062.70 

Decrease in amount of revenue bonds . $ 9,162,137.30 

The amount of taxes uncollected November 20, 

1876, was: 
Taxes of 1876, real and personal . $I55435>035.47 

Arrears of taxes — real estate . $6,889,687.25 

Arrears of taxes — personal estate (See Note) 10,853,972.80 $17,743,660.05 



Total uncollected taxes .... $33,178,695.52 

Of this amount $20,000,000 will probably be collected. 

Note. — Amount of personal tax prior to 1871, in arrears, included above, 
$7,039,483.43. 

276 



OF ANDREW H A S W E L L GREEN 



SINKING FUND 



The amount in the sinking fund for redemption 

of city debt: 
November 20, 1876, was .... 
September 16, 1871, was .... 
Being an increase of . 



$28,285,737.81 

19,422,33348 
% 8,863,404.33 



This increase is not from sales of real estate belonging to the city, only 
$213,040 of it having been received from that source. It is due to the more 
effectual and economical collection and care of the rents, fees, and other reve- 
nues of the city. These collections are still far from being as complete as they 
should be, as resistance is made to their payment by litigation and by such 
other embarrassments as those who ought to pay can surround their obligations 
with 

A FEW COMPARISONS 

Printing and Stationery 

TTie amount expended for printing and stationery in 1871 was $1,018,958.58 
The amount expended for printing and stationery in 1875 was I57>74i-5i 

This amount under proper management could be still further reduced 
25 per cent. 

Advertising 

The amount expended for advertising for the city and county 

government in 1871 was ...... $1,093,369.87 

The amount expended for advertising for the city and county 

government in 1875 was ...... 48,510.84 

Gas 

Tlie amount charged for gas for the city in 1871, was over 1,000,000.00 
The amount expended for gas for the city (excluding the 
twenty-third and twenty-fourth wards, which did not belong 

to the city in 1871) for 1875, was ..... 620,466.39 

The average price for lighting each street lamp in 1871 was 52.00 

The price for lighting each street lamp in 1876 is . 23 to 37.95 

The total number of street lamps lighted in 1875 was 17,775.00 

When the present Comptroller took office there were newspaper claims for 
advertising for the city in the office waiting payment, amounting to two and 
one half millions of dollars. The reduction of these claims to a fair amount left 
the original bills standing evidences of shameless fraud attempted upon the 
city treasury. Under this process many journals expired, and the degree 
of fraudulence of the claim of a journal may be clearly gauged by the intensity 
of its rancor against the Comptroller. The Comptroller has borrowed this 
year on revenue bonds at a rate as low as 2f per cent. The average rate 
during the year 1876 has been about 4 per cent, per annum. The long city 

277 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

bonds bearing 5 per cent, interest, currency, are selling at a fraction above 
par. The city securities never sold higher than now, and its credit never was 
better. The system prescribed by the Charter of 1873, of having one depart- 
ment for the audit and payment of all claims against the city, has been put 
in practice, in spite of years of the most determined resistance, and it is de- 
veloping the very best result. Instead of each department having its treasury 
and paying its bills without a supervising audit, this is now done in the 
Finance Department. 

The Board of Education and the College of the City of New York, under 
the advice of most of its lawyer members, stood out against this salutary prac- 
tice, until a decision of the Court of Appeals required acquiescence. The 
Police Department is now the only exception to this rule. It was especially 
excepted in 1873 to serve no good public purpose, and the law should be 
amended this winter to bring this department also within the rule which 
prevails in all other departments. There is no good reason for its exception. 
If this department were conformed to the general rule, there might at the 
end of each year be exhibited from the Finance Department, a complete and 
most instructive photograph of all the monetary transactions of each depart- 
ment and of the whole city for the year. 

During this period we have annexed a territory almost equal in area to the 
old city. Its confused accounts and neglected obligations have been ascer- 
tained and liquidated, and its semi-rural methods have been assimilated to 
the metropolitan system. 

Ever since the present Comptroller took office it has been his determined 
purpose, so far as his own action and influence could accomplish it, to establish 
the rule that each year should meet its own obligations; that every department 
should be kept within its appropriations. Great progress has been made in 
this direction in spite of loose interpretation of the laws by lawyers, departments, 
and courts. From September 16, 1871, when the present Comptroller took 
office, to December 31, 1874, a period of more than three and one quarter 
years, the total number of judgments obtained against the city was 884, 
amounting to $1,935,389.94, in which sum was included for costs $63,082.28; 
of these 272 were for vacating assessments. Five hundred and seventy of these 
judgments (including costs, $47,831.97), amounting to $1,371,380.73, or about 
two thirds of the whole in number obtained, and more than one half in amount 
are on causes of action originating prior to the present Comptroller's accession 
to office. Forty-three of them are for salaries of supervisors, in addition to 
their salaries as aldermen, amounting to $13,987.82. Fifty-six are for wages 
of boulevard men, supposed to have been illegally employed, amounting to 
$8,819.19. One hundred and seventy-five are miscellaneous, amounting to 
$541,201.31. Judgments obtained in favor of the city are not included in the 

278 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

above. The statements are made up to January'!, 1875. Time is wanting to 
complete the statement up to this time with accuracy. The saving as the 
result of litigation since that time has been at least in as great proportion. 
There has been saved to the city in all probability in each one of twenty individ- 
ual cases more money than all the costs have amounted to in all the cases 
since the present Comptroller came into office. 

I am satisfied that the number of persons employed by the city is largely 
in excess of the requirements of the public service, that the amount paid for 
salaries ought to be greatly reduced, and that a great many unnecessary 
expenditures ought to be cut off. 

I am satisfied that all needed improvements, except, perhaps, in extraordinary 
cases not likely to arise, can be carried on without increasing our city debt 
one dollar, and that the city government can be properly carried on at a rate 
of taxation not exceeding if per cent. I am satisfied that a constitutional amend- 
ment should be adopted limiting the power to contract debt on behalf of the 
city. I am satisfied that the Legislature should not authorize any improve- 
ments to be carried on by the further issue of bonds, and that any loose pro- 
visions of law that now exist authorizing the issue of bonds for such purpose 
should be repealed. There is now in the treasur}^ the sum of ^316,484.03, 
which by law may at any time as required be appropriated to the support of 
the poor and afflicted. There is ample provisions made in the budget of next 
year to repair, repave, and put in order our downtown streets. 

I found the city like a great field, in which ranging herds, tossing the golden 
sheaves, have left their bestial hoof-marks upon every rood of its fertile glebe. 
I found the city like an estate which its easy-going owner had left to the neglect 
of the heedless bailiffs and stewards; its mansions dilapidated, its gardens 
overgrown, its orchards exhausted, its forests dismantled, its rents uncollected, 
its crops ungarnered, and riot and ruin wasting its every feature and every 
interest. 

It may, in moderation, be asserted that something has been effected to restore 
order and system in its financial affairs, to economize expenditures, and to 
lift its administration out of the utter degradation into which it had fallen. 

Respectfully, 

Andrew H. Green, Comptroller. 

A PROPHETIC GLANCE INTO THE FUTURE 

Following Is the full text of the report of 1868, in which Mr. 
Green outlined the plan of municipal consolidation: 

To THE Board of Commissioners of the Central Park: 

In the progress of laying out the north end of the Island the general sugges- 
tions, made in a previous communication to the Board concerning the relations 

279 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

of the southerly part of Westchester County with the city, have come to be 
practically important, and call for distinct notice and specific consideration 
before proceeding to complete the plans upon which the Board is now engaged. 
The lower part of the County of Westchester lies adjacent to the City of New 
York, and is separated from it by a river of a width easily bridged or tunnelled. 
It is so intimately connected with and dependent upon the City of New York, 
that unity of plan for improvements on both sides of the river is essential, 
not only for the future convenience of the inhabitants, but in order that the 
expensive processes of changing the plan of the coming city after it is built 
up may be avoided. 

The leading avenues and lines of travel in the City of New York lie generally 
in a northeas.terly direction, and reach the boundary between the two counties 
at very different distances from the centre of business in New York; thus, 
the Second Avenue terminates at the Harlem River, at about seven miles 
from the City Hall, the Eighth Avenue at about nine miles, and the King's 
Bridge Road, on the west side of the city at about twelve miles from the same 
point. There is, therefore, a triangular gore of the southwestern portion of 
Westchester County, five miles in length from north to south, and over two 
miles in width, from east to west, including all parts of the town of Westchester, 
that lies as near the business centre of New York as the opposite part of New 
York Island. 

Most of the valleys in Westchester which afford easy lines of travel run in a 
similar direction as the leading avenues of New York. 

The bridges that have up to this time been constructed across the Harlem 
River are but cheap and poor affairs, with a capacity for travel that is so much 
less than that of the roads leading to them, as to occasion, particularly at 
those with swings or draws, interruptions and delays to travel that will soon 
become very serious. 

The development of both counties will be much advanced by providing 
means of a direct crossing of the river at the ends of most of the leading avenues 
of New York terminating at the river, and by laying such new avenues as 
are to be provided in New York, terminating at the Harlem River, as far as 
practicable, so as to connect readily and directly by bridges or tunnels with 
avenues leading immediately into the heart of Westchester County by the 
natural openings in the hills, or by convenient methods of surmounting them. 

But little more than a decade has passed since the only roads from the City of 
New York into and through Westchester County were the old Colonial Boston 
Post Road and the Albany Turnpike; the former having its beginning nearly op- 
posite the present termination of Third Avenue, and the latter at King's Bridge. 

After the building of Macomb's Dam and the Farmer's Bridge, near Fordham, 
roads were opened to them, each terminating in the road crossing Westchester 

280 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

from the Boston Post Road, running through Fordham to the Albany Turnpike. 
Three leading lines of railroad already pass through this county, and two or 
three others are projected. 

On its surface, which is generally well adapted for suburban residences may 
now be found many beautiful private structures, as well as public institutions of 
great extent. Its steep and precipitous bluffs are chiefly, though not entirely, 
on the hills that lie along the Hudson and Harlem rivers. 

The immediate front on the Harlem River is capable of being made available 
for the purposes of commerce and for the convenience of a large population. 
It is not too earlyjto endeavor to guide, by such foresight as can be commanded, 
the progress of improvements in Westchester in conjunction with those of 
this city, for the best ultimate interests of both; and so that the benefits which 
ought naturally to accrue to that county, from its proximity to the city, may 
not be postponed. Several villages have, within the last twenty years, been 
projected in Westchester by the owners of farms, which already embarrass the 
question of future improvements, and unless the difficulties are soon met by 
the adoption of a general plan, these embarrassments will have so increased, 
and become so fixed upon the ground, that no generation will be found bold 
enough to grapple with and remedy them. 

Less than four square miles of the City of New York, above Astor Place, had 
been laid out in farm plots, without reference to any general plan, prior to 
1807, and were but little built upon prior to 18 1 1, when the plan of the city 
was adopted; and to this day parts of this district have not recovered from 
the ill effects of this heterogeneous work of individuals. When once sales 
of territory are made in small subdivisions, questions of title so complicate 
and weigh down efforts to remedy past errors that they are abandoned. 

Although a street or avenue may be made more capacious by taking land 
from adjacent lots, yet by this process the lots bordering on it are often left 
of greatly reduced value and of much diminished convenience. 

The southerly part of Westchester County is made up of the towns Morrisania, 
West Farms, East and West Chester, and Yonkers. The township of Morrisania 
already comprehends the villages of Morrisania, Mott Haven, Port Morris, 
Wilton, North New York, East and West Morrisania, Melrose, Woodstock 
Elton, Claremont, and Highbridgeville. The township of West Farms com- 
prises the villages of Tremont, Belmont, West Farms, Central Morrisania, 
Mount Hope, Mount Eden, William's Bridge, Fairmount, and Fordham. 
These settlements are generally laid out with but little regard to each other 
or to their surroundings. The case is similar with that part of the town of 
Yonkers which adjoins the City of New York, and those parts of the towns of 
East and West Chester within the same radial distance from New York City 
Hall as King's Bridge. 

281 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

The rapid approach of the city has occasioned great changes in the sub- 
divisions of land in these towns, and in the value of property. But a few 
years since they were but little altered in their surface, except by the work of 
the farmer, from what they were when all that portion of the country was 
granted to Vonder Donck, more than two centuries ago. 

The increase of this city will, within a short period, without doubt, require 
most of the area included within the southern part of Westchester for the homes 
of her artisans and merchants, and the solution of the question of rapid con- 
veyance of business men between their homes and business is all that is required 
to cover the unsettled portion of New York and the picturesque hills and valleys 
of the southerly part of Westchester with the residences of these classes and 
of those who desire to live near a great city. 

The Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek are the boundary line between 
the two counties; the jurisdiction of the City of New York extends to low- 
water mark on the Westchester shore. It needs but a short look into the future 
to see this river busy with the craft that are to supply the thriving population 
on both its banks. 

At present these waters are but little navigated for commercial purposes; 
in some parts they are obstructed by mud-flats and by illy constructed bridges. 
These two are really but one river, or rather they are an estuary connecting 
the tidewaters of the East River and the Sound with those of the north side 
of the city, and can only be properly considered in connection with the waters 
they unite. As a waterway for commerce this estuary has the advantage of 
the Thames in the far less inconvenience arising from the rise and fall of tides, 
in the Thames sometimes equal to twenty-one feet, occasioning great expense 
in the construction of storehouses, and in handling goods to be loaded and un- 
loaded. 

The tides on the Harlem rise about six feet. It has the advantage of the 
Seine by reason of its easy debouchment into both rivers. The falls of ram 
that sometimes suddenly swell the Seine, occasioning great inconvenience, 
have no important effect on the Harlem. 

At a small cost in comparison with the accruing benefit, a channel can be 
made from the North River to Long Island Sound, through the Harlem River, 
with greater depth of water than the North River affords at some points 
between this city and Albany, and of width sufficient for all the practical 
purposes of commerce that will seek to use it. 

The importance of measures for the improvement of the navigation of this 
river was made the subject of a general communication to the Board in the 
year 1865. It has since been brought to more general notice, and is beginning 
to command the attention of landowners in New York and in Westchester 
County, as it should, and sooner or later will, that of the public authorities of 

282 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

both counties, and of the State, as it concerns deeply a large portion of the 
commerce of the interior. 

Without again detailing the results to be anticipated from such an improve- 
ment, it is sufficient to repeat that it will shorten the distance of the travel 
between the North River and the waters of the Sound, and of a large portion 
of the City of Brooklyn lying on the East River, and between the North River 
and the Eastern States by more than twenty miles around the Battery of 
the tedious, expensive and unsafe navigation of the crowded waters that skirt 
the city; and, in connection with the improvement proposed at Hell Gate, 
will increase the facilities of foreign traffic by the Sound. 

As early as the year 1700, these waters of the Harlem and Spuyten Duyvil 
were respected as a navigable stream. It is on record that the first bridge 
across them was a drawbridge at or near the site of the present King's Bridge, 
erected by Frederick Phillipse, prior to that year. 

Recent surveys made under the direction of the Commissioners of the 
Central Park establish the fact that prior to artificial obstructions in the river 
near King's Bridge for the erection of a watermill, about the commencement 
of the present century, the channel near that point at the narrowest part 
of the river, must have been over one hundred and fifty feet in width, and at 
least six feet deep at high water of ordinary tides. It has been reduced by 
artificial methods to its present width at the same point of not exceeding 
eighty feet. 

Between King's Bridge and the East River navigation was obstructed by 
Macomb's Dam and the Harlem Bridge in the present century. It was after- 
ward threatened with a more formidable barrier in a bridge proposed to be 
built to carry over the Croton Aqueduct, the erection of which was resisted 
by citizens both of Westchester and New York, at whose instance the Legisla- 
ture, in the year 1839, passed an act limiting the obstructions to those presented 
by the High Bridge. 

The gentlemen who successfully resisted the attempt to obstruct navigation 
by the Croton Aqueduct Bridge also took measures to prevent its further 
obstruction by a bridge at the Second Avenue, and to remove Macomb's 
Dam, and cause draws to be constructed in the bridges at the Third and Fourth 
avenues. 

In the proceedings before the courts relating to this matter, it was shown 
that prior to the year 1813, the Harlem River was regularly navigated as 
far up as Farmer's Bridge by vessels carrying various kinds of produce, lumber 
and other building materials. Spuyten Duyvil Creek is now navigated by 
North River sloops and other vessels, from its mouth to within a few yards of 
King's Bridge. 

In the case of " Renwick vs. Morris," in the Court for the Correction of Errors, 

283 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

affirming the judgment of the Supreme Court, it was held that Macomb's 
Dam, as constructed, was a public nuisance, liable to abatement, although 
it has existed as such for over twenty years on a navigable river. This water- 
way affords advantages of navigation for a distance of over five miles to each 
county, equal, if not superior, to those furnished by the North River and Long 
Island Sound to the rest of the County of Westchester. 

It cannot be doubted that great benefits would result to both counties, if 
the navigation of these waters were properly improved. But this improvement 
cannot be well done, if it even can be done at all, by the separate powers of 
each county. The method of proceeding would probably be to build bulkheads 
on both sides of the channel opposite each other at the same time, and deposit 
the material which must be dredged from the channel behind both lines of 
bulkhead in proper proportions. When the obstructions at King's Bridge 
are reached, the whole width of the river may be closed for a distance of about 
1,500 feet, the water pumped out, the rock in its bed blasted, and the material 
removed for the whole required width and depth by one set of employees; 
walls are then to be built on both sides, and fendered and secured before opening 
the river again. It is not possible to do this work by piecemeal — it must 
be done as a whole, and to be well done, it must be done under one authority. 

It is an undertaking in which the public not merely on the banks of the 
river, but over a very wide extent, is greatly interested; as things now stand, 
different jurisdictions and forms of municipal government, through all the 
territory immediately affected and to be directly benefited, will very much 
embarrass its accomplishment. It is doubtful whether it can be satisfactorily 
carried out by any private company, and without the provision by intelligent 
legislation, of adequate means intrusted to some competent body duly author- 
ized thereto; to invest any private company with the right to exclude vessels 
from passing through this waterway, except upon payment of tolls, would 
be open to great objection. 

The problems to be solved for all time are those of the accommodation 
by the most improved modern methods, of traffic across the river, and of 
traffic on the river, so that each shall not interfere with the other. 

The improvement of the navigation of the river is one subject and the method 
of carrying persons across it another. Having alluded to the former, the 
other question, that of crossing the river, remains to be briefly considered. 

Some idea of the extent of bridge and tunnel communication that will 
ultimately be required between New York and Westchester may be obtained 
from the experience of the cities of London and Paris. 

There are now in London seven bridges across the Thames, devoted to 
ordinary traffic, and three exclusively for railways, within the distance of 
three miles, beginning at the east; they are as follows: London Bridge, South- 

284 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

wark. Bridge for general traffic, and at a distance of 1,450 feet from the former, 
betv/een these, is a railway bridge; the next is Blackfriars Bridge, at a distance 
of 2,450 feet from Southwark Bridge; another railway bridge lies between the 
two last named; then comes Waterloo Bridge, at 2,900 feet from Blackfriars 
Bridge; then Westminster Bridge, 3,150 feet from Waterloo Bridge, with 
another railway bridge between them; next is Lambeth Bridge, distant from 
Westminster Bridge 2,250 feet, and is followed by Vauxhall Bridge, 2,700 feet 
farther up the river, and near the limit of dense population; beyond these are 
Chelsea and Battersea bridges, each at intervals of a little over a mile. 

These bridges vary in length from 708 feet to 1,380 feet, and are of various 
widths. 

Less than a century ago the bridges over the Thames within the above 
limits were Old London, Blackfriars and Westminster. Since then Old London 
Bridge has been removed as inadequate for the modern travel, and New London 
Bridge built near the site of the old one. Blackfriars and Westminster have 
been improved and rebuilt, and all the others newly constructed. In building 
the New London Bridge and the others, very great expense was incurred 
for opening the new streets and approaches to them, and great delay incurred 
thereby. Most of these bridges are designed upon an extensive and magnificent 
scale as to the extent of the accommodation afforded, and are works of engi- 
neering skill and architectural beauty. It is stated that the cost of the New 
London Bridge and the approaches to it, over thirty years ago, was £2,000,000, 
or about $14,000,000 of United States currency. In addition to the bridges 
mentioned, the opposite banks of the Thames are connected by the Thames 
Tunnel, at the distance of about two miles below London Bridge, j 

Within the limits of the City of Paris, the river Seine is crossed by twenty-six 
bridges in the distance of seven and a half miles, including the number which 
cross both of the channels passing the Isle of St. Louis and Isle de Palais. 

Seven of these bridges are suspension, three are of iron on stone piers, one is 
of wood, and the rest are of stone; their length varies from 170 feet to 460 
feet, and their breadth from fifteen to eighty-three feet; two of them are for 
foot passengers only, and two exclusive for railways. 

Twelve of the bridges are less than 1,000 feet distant from the nearest bridge 
to them. Between fourteen of them the distance is less than 2,000 feet each, 
and the greatest distance between any two of them is but 4,700 feet. Many 
of them are most elaborate and elegant structures, and were erected at great 
cost; in both London and Paris several of these bridges were built by private 
enterprise and profit derived from tolls collected for passing; but of late they 
have mostly been built as free bridges at the expense of the municipalities, 
and several of the bridges that formerly were toll bridges have been made free. 
Whenever the population of New York and Westchester shall assume the 

285 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

density on the shores of the Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek which 
that of London has on the Thames, and Paris on the Seine, the means of com- 
munication must be fully equal to that afforded across the Thames and Seine, 
and it must be borne in mind that the general traffic over bridges crossing the 
Thames and Seine is not obstructed by draws and openings. 

The length of the waterway from the North River to Little Hell Gate, 
measured through the Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Harlem River, is about 
39,000 feet — nearly eight miles. The average distance between bridges 
for general traffic in London is 2,100 feet, and in Paris, 1,500 feet. 

The average distance of those in London would give nineteen, and of those 
of Paris nearly twenty-five for equal accommodation across the Harlem River 
and Spuyten Duyvil Creek, to the East River, and their length, excepting 
those that may be built on the suspension plan, would probably vary from 
250 to 600 feet. 

If the City of New York and Long Island shall hereafter be connected by 
bridges, the distance between Ward's Island and the Battery would require 
twenty-two of them, if they crossed as frequently as in London; and thirty, 
if they were built as near each other as in Paris. 

The construction of proper approaches to tunnels under the Harlem River 
would be much easier than in London, because the average rise and fall of tide 
is nearly fourteen feet less in New York than in London, and that difference in 
grade alone would be very beneficial if equal size of tunnel and depth of channel 
were maintained in both cities. 

The width of the Seine through the City of Paris is from 100 to 600 feet. 

The width of the Thames through the City of London is from 870 to 1,200 feet. 

The width of Harlem River and Spuyten Duyvil Creek, between New York 
and Westchester, is from 200 to 450 feet. 

The width of the East River, between the pier-head lines of New York and 
Brooklyn, is from 1,200 to 2,500 feet. 

The width of the North River, between New York and New Jersey, is from 
2,700 to 4,000 feet between the pier-head lines. 

In various reports, discussions, affidavits and remonstrances on the subject 
of the improvement of the Harlem River, and in relation to the removal of 
obstructions to navigation, much stress has been laid on the fact that even 
draw or swing bridges add greatly to the expenses of transportation. 

These, with other considerations of a public character, would suggest the 
desirability, whenever practicable, of constructing tunnels in lieu of bridges. 

From the East River to Macomb's Dam the shores of the Harlem River are 
too flat to admit of the easy construction of aerial or suspension bridges, but 
are thought to be fairly adapted to the construction of tunnels under the river- 
bed, at such depth as would not impede navigation. 

286 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

From High Bridge to Sherman's Creek, aerial or suspension bridges might 
be built at as great altitude as the High Bridge of the Croton Aqueduct, and 
again from Sherman's Creek to the North River ^tunnels could be constructed 
under and bridges over the river and creek wherever crossing from shore to 
shore was shown by proper topographical examination of the two counties to 
be required. 

In determining the height of bridges, it should be remembered that steam 
vessels are rapidly supplanting sailing vessels, and that therefore the construc- 
tion of bridges to accommodate lofty masts is a constantly diminishing neces- 
sity, and that by the striking of the topmasts and topgallant masts, many 
sailing vessels might be accommodated with diminished height of bridge. 

The subject of the sewerage of the northern part of New York Island and all 
the southwestern part of Westchester is one in which the citizens of both places 
are equally interested, and should be arranged under one homogeneous system. 

The amount of sewage and offal which, without proper regulation, would be 
cast into the Harlem River from either or both shores, would, by reason of the 
limited width of the river, be likely to be injurious to the healthfulness of both, 
and detrimental to navigation. 

Immense outlays are now making to free the Thames from the noxious 
effects of the city sewage; measures for the same purpose should be undertaken 
at the Harlem River. 

The supply of pure and wholesome water in Westchester is another subject 
demanding early attention, in order that the wants of her increasing population 
may be met at the proper time. 

It is problematical whether the supply of water that can be drawn through 
the Croton Aqueduct, after the immense storage reservoirs now building in 
Putnam County are completed, will be more than the City of New York, 
with its present limits, will ultimately require under rigid rules to prevent 
waste. 

It is certain that much of the land in the southern part of Westchester is too 
highly elevated to be able to draw water from the Croton Aqueduct if the 
supply were enough to warrant it, yet a judicious arrangement of the means 
and resources now unused in Westchester, in combination with the use of 
such portion of the surplus of the Croton water as the season might afford, 
would be productive of immediate benefit to property on both sides of the 
river, and very much hasten its occupancy. 

The Bronx and Saw iVIill rivers are the only resources that are likely to be 
availed of for the supply of water to the lower part of Westchester County, 
and the supplies that they will afford should be secured and devoted for such 
purposes at as early a period as possible, and before the banks of those streams 
are occupied with establishments that will pollute the water and render the 

287 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

streams unfit for use, except at the great expense of buying off this class of 
occupancy. 

From the period when the question of supplying New York City with pure 
water first occupied the public mind, until the year 1841, when the Croton 
water was finally introduced, more than half a century elapsed, and various 
projects were entertained and discussed. 

The Collect Pond, in this city, Artesian Wells, the Bronx and Saw Mill 
rivers, the Housatonic River and the Croton each had their advocates, as well 
as the Passaic, since appropriated for the supply of Jersey City and its sur- 
roundings, and even a project for damming the Hudson River opposite Amos 
Street (now West Tenth Street), making slack water navigation above it, 
and using the water power afforded from it to pump a supply for the city, 
was proposed and entertained. 

During the time thus employed in considering various plans, the material 
interests of the City of New York suffered severely for want of pure water 
for her citizens, and an adequate supply for the extinguishment of fires, and 
large sums were expended by the Manhattan Company in futile efforts to 
obtain a supply of pure water for domestic purposes, and by the Corporation 
of the City to procure a supply from similar sources sufficient for the use of 
the fire department, in both cases unsuccessfully; the probable result of the 
latter failure was the disastrous fire of December, 1835, when more value of 
property was destroyed in one night than the original cost of the Croton Water 
Works. 

The ancient boundaries of the City of New York extend to low-water mark 
on its opposite and surrounding shores, thus giving to the city territorial 
jurisdiction over the adjacent rivers. Serious disputes have arisen with the 
State of New Jersey, and much trouble occasioned with Brooklyn in regard 
to jurisdiction at the wharves, as well as regards the ferries to Long Island. 

The question of ferries across the North River is still in an unsatisfactory 
condition, each state claiming the right to make laws to regulate them. The 
city now owns in Westchester County the line of the Croton Aqueduct, and a 
large area of land in Putnam County, for existing and future reservoirs. 

The building and maintenance of bridges between the Counties of New 
York and Westchester has already been occasion of vexation and trouble. 
Westchester has claimed that she ought to pay only a portion of the expense 
of erecting a bridge over the river, equal to the proportion of it that stands 
within her jurisdiction, which extends only to low-water mark on her own side 
of the river, thus charging that county with but a very trifling part of the 
whole expense. This, it is believed, has been the basis claimed by Westchester 
on every occasion of building a bridge between the two counties. 

The laying out of roads and bridges, and the apportioning of expenditures 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

for great works built in the interest of both counties and of the whole pubHc, 
should be taken out of the petty squabbles of small jurisdiction, and left to 
the determination of some body with comprehensive powers, capable of dealing 
with these subjects, not in the interest of New York alone, or of Westchester 
alone, but in that of both, and of the whole public convenience. 

The inconveniences that arise from the existing diversity of legislative, 
judicial, and executive functions, and of officers that have a patched and piece- 
meal jurisdiction over divers portions of the territory in question, are daily 
experienced; to remedy this in some degree it has been found desirable to 
extend the powers of the Police Board, and the Health Board, not only over 
New York and Westchester, but over Kings and Richmond counties, though 
still at the different ends of every existing bridge over the Harlem, the police 
are required to enforce different excise regulations. 

To-day, under acts of the Legislature, passed recently, there are at least 
seven separate and independent commissions engaged in laying out, working 
and grading streets, avenues, and roads in the towns of West Farms and Morri- 
sania, and several of the lines of these roads necessarily intersect each other, 
and the separate town authorities also still exercise their control as to working 
and grading the remaining streets, without reference to these several commis- 
sions 

It will be observed that this communication is confined to works of a physical 
material character, in which both counties have a common interest — such 
an interest, present and prospective, as will be best fostered by unity of de- 
velopment: these works are the water supply, the sewerage, the navigation 
of the interjacent waters, the means of crossing these waters, and the land ways 
that should be laid on each side so as to furnish the best facilities for both. 
In this enumeration nothing is included that will not be more wisely and better 
planned and executed by a single authority, and nothing that proposes any 
present change in political jurisdiction, or that is calculated to disturb the 
functions or privileges of any existing officer or officers. 

The location, building, and maintenance of bridges or tunnels across or under 
the river, the proper times for doing it, the improvement of the navigation of 
the river, and the maintenance of it, and the proportion of expense to be borne 
by the property benefited, can scarcely be adjudicated by independent polit- 
ical corporations, and the time that would be lost in conferences or litigations, 
and in efforts of the representatives of each city or county to throw an undue 
portion of the expense on the other, would be the occasion of detriment to the 
prosperity of all interested. 

If the convenient administration of the laws in these adjacent counties has 
required the exercise of a united authority in certain departments, why, in the 
case of clearer necessity tor unity in the planning and building of these material 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

works, should it be found difficult to secure the agencies that will insure such 
unity, with entire acceptability to the people of both counties, and although 
the advantages to accrue from a consolidation of a portion of Westchester 
with New York and Brooklyn into one municipality, with one executive head, 
will force itself upon the mind, yet all that is suggested or required in the 
material works above enumerated may be gained without such consolidation. 
A competent body may be constituted, with all needed powers for the purpose, 
without territorial consolidation, and without raising those purely political 
considerations which may be delayed until the necessity of territorial annexation 
demands immediate attention. 

Heretofore, where a measure has involved the interest of both counties, 
it has been usual to compose a body of citizens, selected from both counties, for 
its execution; and perhaps this would be the preferable way, though it does 
not seem to have worked very well on the Third Avenue Bridge. The method 
to be adopted will probably be left to be determined, so far as Westchester 
is concerned, by the wish of the people of that county, as expressed by its 
representatives In the Legislature. 

It is not intended now to do more than direct attention to the important subject 
of bringing the City of New York and the County of Kings, a part of Westchester 
County and a part of Queens and Richmond, including the various suburbs of the 
city within a certain radial distance from the centre, under one common municipal 
government, to be arranged in departments under a single executive head. 

It would not be difficult to present reasons for such a territorial consolidation 
that will increase in cogency as population augments, and as facilities of inter- 
communication are developed to meet in some degree the demand of this 
population. 

More than 1,500,000 of people are comprehended (1868) within the area 
of this city and its immediate neighborhood, all drawing sustenance from the 
commerce of New York, and many of them contributing but little toward the 
support of its government. 

An area that could be readily described, of convenient distances from the 
centre, would comprehend within its limits the residence as well as the place 
of business of most of its population; thus resolving the difficult question of 
taxation of non-residents that now exists. 

Each department would be ratably represented in a common legislative 
assembly, and the expenses of government would be apportioned and borne 
by separate departments, and judicial, police and sanitary powers executed 
under equal and uniform regulations. The existing public property of each 
department would be left to be applied to its separate indebtedness and im- 
provement. 

It would be best, at the outset, to disturb but few existing officials; their 

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OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

offices should be left to expire with time and with the general conviction that 
they were not wanted; all purely political questions and jurisdictions might 
remain as at present — the idea being gradually to bring, without a shock or 
conflict, the whole territory under uniform government. 

Can any one doubt that this question will force itself upon the public attention 
at no very distant period? Ingenuity is now taxed to devise methods of 
carrying people from the suburbs to the centre, and the relations of the city 
with the suburbs are daily becoming more direct and immediate 

The great procession that continually moves toward our city from the Old 
World makes its first halt at Staten Island in Richmond County, preparatory 
to its western progress. 

Measures are now on foot to unite Brooklyn with New York by two mag- 
nificent bridges, which are but the precursors of others, and which arc to 
supplement the thronged ferries. A system of capacious ways is already 
projected to connect the extensive parks that both municipaliticL are now 
engaged in adorning — each with its own characteristics and each with its 
own public attractions. 

Westchester is demanding ways to transmit her population to the city; 
Richmond County, by her ferries and railways, is exerting herself in the same 
direction; all progress points toward eventual consolidation and unity of admin- 
istration; the disadvantage of an incongruous and disjointed authority over 
communities that are striving by all material methods that the skill of man can 
devise to become one, will be more and more apparent, and the small jealousies 
and petty interests that seek to keep them separated will be less and less 
effectual. 

COMPREHENSIVE OUTLINE OF THE WORK OF THE 
GREATER NEW YORK COMMISSION 

New York, March 4, 1890. 

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York: 

The undersigned respectfully represents that, at the session of the Legislature 
of 1889, a bill to create a commission to inquire into the expediency of enlarging 
the area of the City of New York passed the Assembly and through various 
steps of legislation in the Senate, but in the last hours of the session failed to 
reach a third reading. 

Its object was simply to authorize official examination of a very interesting 
and important subject. 

Notwithstanding the measure failed to reach the final stage of legislative 
sanction, its progress up to the point advanced gives augury of growing favor 
and inspires the belief that popular sentiment, enlightened by study, is keeping 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

step with the swift material tendencies of closer approximation of borders, 
assimilation of peoples, and identification of interests toward speedy and 
inevitable consolidation. 

Having in view similar objects and advocating similar measures, this com- 
munication is submitted, not with the intent of hastening a future which, 
urged by the material influences referred to, is already rapidly approaching, 
but rather of preparing with a proper sense of duties and responsibilities to 
meet it in the broad spirit which the magnitude of the subject demands. 

While there are those reluctant to yield to the movement, there are but very 
few who deny its growing force and certainty of result, and the question which 
faces our population here is not whether we shall be drawn into closer imion, 
but how and upon what basis such union can be best established. 

It is the object of this communication to impress the importance of official 
inquiry into this subject, and its presentation is neither premature nor will 
it be in advance of time or events. It is proposed to ordain nothing finally, 
but at present to go no further than to provide forms for authentic inquiry 
to make record of objections and disadvantages no less than of advantages 
and inducements to nearer association, and to leave parties to the inquiry 
in the same free and uncompromised condition as before. It does not look 
to enforcement of any measure of consolidation against reluctant municipalities, 
but on the contrary affords time, place, manner, and opportunity for empha- 
sizing officially and authentically reasons and purpose of dissent, or, if agree- 
ment is found desirable under any conditions, to suggest what those conditions 
shall be. 

The proposed commission is to report the result of its examination to succeed- 
ing Legislatures, which, if they see fit, may pass an enabling act under the pro- 
visions of which such of the communities as may desire so to do may form 
closer associationo or still preserve their separate attitude. 

There are those who look upon this measure with apprehension as the first 
step in the development of a new policy and in the line of movement ending 
in consolidation. 

It is too late to take counsel from such misgivings. It is not a question 
of policy or of plans, but of progress of the law of evolution, no less natural 
or inevitable than the meeting of waters which, fed by inexhaustible streams 
first finding lodgment in separate places among various depressions of the 
surface, but rising higher with the growing volume, surmount the barriers 
of division and become one. 

The first step toward union of our peoples here was taken when nature 
grouped together in close indissoluble relation, at the mouth of a great river, 
our three islands, Manhattan, Long, and Staten, making them buttresses and 
breakwaters of a capacious harbor, placing them in line of shortest communi- 

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OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

cation between the great region of which Boston was to become the commercial 
centre and the other great region of which Philadelphia was to become the 
metropolis; interposing mountains to the west and the sea to the east, obstruct- 
ing any other path; determining, by the same conditions which were to make, 
and have made, this the chief emporium of foreign commerce, that it was also 
to be, the chief entrepot of domestic trade; and preordaining that here was to 
be, as there is, the great city of the continent, to become in time the great 
city of the world and of all time. 

These anticipations are not now for the first time advanced by me. As 
early as 1868, in an official communication m which various interests of the 
city were considered on the subject of consolidation of various areas about 
the city, I wrote as follows: 

(Here follows an extract from the preceding report of 1868.) 

It is scarcely necessary to restate the manifest advantages to accrue to 
the population intimately to occupy the territory to be comprenended in this 
consolidated area, from a plan conceived with full apprehension of its future 
physical needs, rather than from the results of the feeble action of various 
petty authorities. Observation of progressive development since the date 
of the above official suggestions assures me that I then read aright the promise 
of destiny, and that the legislative measure I have the honor to propose is 
but a step in inevitable consummation, supreme over considerations of transient 
policies or expediency. 

If reason did not sufficiently explain that tendencies to further consolidation 
are irresistible, the fact would be shown in the actual advances made in that 
direction — advances by which approximating communities have already 
merged early rivalries and jealousies in union of forces for cooperative work, 
thus covering divided areas by one harmonious administration, as shown by 
the annexation of three towns of Westchester County to this city, by the con- 
solidation of Williamsburg with Brooklyn, and the proposed union of Long 
Island City and Flatbush with Brooklyn. 

The various rivers, estuaries, streams, straits, and inlets which thread our 
situation here were once the frontier lines of barbaric jurisdictions of a vanished 
race. Our own people fell into that framing for a while, but, as we grew in 
numbers and expanded, these ancient limitations ceased to be regarded. What 
was probably once a divisional line of aboriginal authority at the Canal Street 
estuary has been effaced, and progress of a wider sway, by a more intelligent 
race, has marched into common possession of the divided areas. Advancing 
farther, it has bridged the Harlem and annexed what was once the hostile 
dominion of the Raracas. 

To the east of us the same new peoples have effaced the lines which in ancient 
days separated the districts upon which the growing cities of Brooklyn and 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Williamsburg now stand, crossed the line of what is now Gowanus inlet, and con- 
solidated in one expanding rule all below. The movement still progresses, but we 
have yet our Sachems, great chiefs and small, who cling to the traditions of bar- 
baric times, and seek to preserve their clans and clanships by fencing them out 
upon little lines of narrow demarcations against the gathering strength of pop- 
ular dominion. But the encounter is one between the retreating forces of the 
tribal system and the coming forces of the cooperative system, between bar- 
baric tradition and educated aspiration, to which there can be but one result, 
when the frontier lines of the Manhattan, the Montauks, and the Raritans 
shall be obliterated, and New York, Brooklyn, Long Island City, and Staten 
Island shall be one politically as they are already, in every other relation. 
In this, future history will only repeat itself, doing here what has been done 
in London, Paris, Brooklyn, and Chicago, all of which cities have become 
great and prosperous, not alone by accumulation of numbers within their 
first restricted bounds, but by expansion, annexation, and consolidation. 

But few, even among our most observant citizens, realize the degree and 
number of governmental antagonisms by which civil administration around 
the port of New York is disorganized. The situation is strange and presents 
a subject for philosophic study. Occupied by what may be considered sub- 
stantially one people having common pursuits, views, and habits of life, dwelling 
under the same conditions, participating alike in the bounties and privations 
of their region, drawing subsistence from the same source and impoverished 
by the same denials, there is probably nowhere another three and a half millions 
of people so thoroughly assimilated as the populations grouped about this port. 
There is thus, in the world over, no other area of a hundred and fifty square 
miles whose welfare could be better promoted by one general administration; 
yet there is not, in the world over, another like area so disturbed by multi- 
plicity of conflicting authorities. The scheme is one which the observer may 
well pause to consider. It is divided up and parcelled out among two states, 
four cities, and six counties. I trust I may be excused for saying that the 
arrangement is a travesty upon government. 

That these conditions have prevailed for a century without precipitating 
the anarchy inherent in them is extraordinary. The relations of the various 
parties to the complex scheme have been often strained to the point of rupture, 
developing antagonisms for which, if left to the control of the many-headed 
municipalities, shrievalties, bailiwicks, and townships which mottle the varied 
space, there was no arbitrament but that of the sword and cannon. Fortu- 
nately, at this stage, extraneous authorities greater than our own intervened 
to enforce peaceful solution. This has been done in the instance of the con- 
troversy between this state and New Jersey upon the subject of controlling 
the navigation of the Hudson River. The controversy between a mayor of 

294 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

this city and other authorities upon the subject of the appointment of police 
commissioners and the extent of New York police protection reached a stage 
of disturbance very nearly, if not quite, beyond the control of the municipal 
authorities. The burning of the quarantine buildings at Staten Island, by 
the resident citizens, was a proceeding of tumultuous character, and resulted 
from the circumstance that these persons had no voice in the counsels which 
inflicted the nuisance upon them. 

The disposition to rebel against existing dismembered authority is further 
illustrated by a project once advanced by Jersey City to be set off from New 
York as an independent port of entry, and by her successful resistance of the 
scheme to have passengers from foreign ports landed at the Barge Office on 
the Battery. Recourse to extraneous authority for internal redress should 
be a proceeding of last resort, and is never employed without some infraction 
of domestic right and public decorum. 

Could prescience have devised at the beginning of our settlements here that 
these islands which form our port were to be, in the short period which has 
elapsed, the dwelling place of two and a half millions of people, and have 
received the assurances conclusive to us that in thirty additional years there 
would be not far from two and a half millions more, the scheme of development 
would have been cast on a scale vastly more comprehensive and the authority 
over the entire situation would have been reserved to one municipal administra- 
tion. If this was ever true, its truth is more impressive now than before 
and must become manifest as time passes. 

There are some spheres of administration whose proper regulation is most 
vitally important to the common welfare and which cannot be apportioned 
out among different territorial authorities. The navigable water system of the 
port belongs in common to all the cities and towns and counties of the port. 
Its development and protection is the concern of all, but under existing 
arrangements is the duty of none. It provides for us not only approaches 
from abroad and from our far interior, but constitutes for us locally a system 
of natural canals of superior excellence serving alike all the municipalities 
involved; by which canals may be transported bulks and tonnage of freight so 
immense as to preclude their movement by other methods. 

It is a misconstruction of terms and things to define as barriers or divisional 
lines the means by which communities meet and mingle; by which merchants 
and business men of one near shore are enabled to employ upon the other 
necessary utilities not found on their own; by which bankers, merchants, 
professional men, laboring men and women, equalling in number the entire pop- 
ulation of other large cities, pass daily to and fro to offices, stores, houses, fac- 
tories, and residences; by which on festive days holiday boats gather from 
schools, churches, guilds, labor unions, and other societies upon either shore, 

295 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

and from all the towns their contingents of pleasure seekers to enjoy the 
reunion of common citizenship, as moving upon these waters they pass in 
review the splendid scenery of their common possession; by which, in the 
neighborhood of the ferries, there is established between New York and Brook- 
lyn not only communication, but communion closer and more intimate than 
is found existing between the eastern and western water fronts of the metropolis; 
and by which Staten Island is placed in closer relation to the Battery districts 
of New York than it was formerly possible to establish between that district 
and Harlem or Morrisania. Though geographically separating them, com- 
mercially and socially these water-ways and natural canals really unite all 
the municipalities, and it is perversion of thought and policy to regard these 
bonds of union as symbols of division, and to find in the paths by which we 
are united the lines by which we are all separated. 

This misconstruction of the relation of our water-ways to the local situation; 
this failure to recognize, though we abundantly use them as local canals, 
relegates their custody to the irresponsible charge of all, without permitting 
them to the special concern of any. The water front of no municipality here 
belongs to it to be extended, filled in, or aligned as its authorities may determine. 
This front has relation to the water front of all the other municipalities. Arti- 
ficial change in one section creates, by natural operation, change often preju- 
dicial in another. The action of tides and currents is so subtle and inscrutable 
as to baffle inquiry of the most expert, and injuries to one remote section are 
untraceable to what are considered improvements in another, except by the 
circumstantial evidence that they are contemporaneous. 

We are building anew yet, and some margin of discrepancy may be allowed 
to the energies of development, even when carefully directed by such advisory 
authority as is empowered to suggest method and direction; but our water 
system is subject to that spoliation and perversion which proceeds covertly 
without semblance of any warrant or official direction whatever. The rogueries 
of garbage and mudscow boatmen in making the channels dumping places for 
all sorts of waste are past finding out. From Sandy Hook to Yonkers all the 
shore and all the water space is open to lawless enterprise. Every little district 
has its marauders, who by encroachment, appropriation, and misuse deplete the 
general system, to transfuse its vitalities into some niggard scheme or individual 
profit. 

Parasite companies, usurping the name of giant corporations, stake broad 
lines far out in this common domain and bid the waters come no further, and 
they obey. 

The right of way to the south and to the capital of the nation, once as broad 
as the southern shore of the port, is practically narrowed to two roadways, 
and it is but a question of stock jobbing when they shall be merged into one. 

296 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

It was thought this monopolistic array was brolvcn by the advance to the water 
front of a new and competing line by Staten Island. So strongly were the 
older companies intrenched in their lines of water frontage, and so strong 
their grasp of all agencies for organizing popular sentiment, in the local press, 
town councils, and Legislatures, that the new Baltimore & Ohio road was en- 
abled to perfect its route only by intervention of the National Government, 
overruling the protests, feigned in the interests of state rights and local freedom, 
as uttered by hired claquers of public opinion and officially formulated by 
subservient authority; yet no sooner does the new road, by a bridge across the 
Staten Island kills, chartered by Congress, reach our shore, than it too is 
seized with the frenzy of riparian acquisition, and is now before the Legislature 
of New York with a proposition seeking charter to deliver Staten Island and 
her belongings into the universal railroad trust. 

What this shall mean the people of Richmond County will learn when ex- 
panding population and growing business shall make indispensable the provision 
of additional ferries and the opening of new streets to the water front; or when, 
rebelling against unendurable impositions, all our populations here shall desire 
the chartering of new trunk lines from this port to the interior, to compete, 
in the interests of all private rights and economies, which are the units of 
public right and public thrift, with the exactions of colossal and all-pervading 
monopoly. 

Actuated by selfish motives, all private interests tend to consolidation and 
trusts. The only interest which refrains is that of our unselfish, thoughtless 
peoples and their fatuous municipalities, which in broken form carry on desul- 
tory and futile war against the organized forces of relentless and absentee 
capitalism resident in Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, London, Paris, 
or Frankfort, voting by proxy or loaned stock in secret corporate directory, 
and determining for us what we shall do with our own, or whether it shall 
be our own; taking from us the meat of butchered freedom, and leaving us 
the skin and bones to be taxidermed into living semblance and imposed upon 
our many-headed municipalities as life, form, and substance of true original 
heaven-born liberty, for our various mayors, supervisors, and councilmen 
with their henchmen and heelers to apostrophize and adore. All society, 
at least our society here, may be considered as classified in regular forces, which, 
animated by intelligence, move in concert upon fixed plans to definite purpose; 
and guerilla bands which, without design or concert or ultimate aim, skirmish 
weakly and vainly against the advance of superior organization. The cor- 
porate powers represent here the regular force, and our divided municipalities, 
though invested with responsibility of protecting all that belongs to the people 
in the sphere of civil administration, represent the guerillas. The continuance 
of this relation between the corporate power and the power of the people de- 

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pends upon *he length of the period during which we shall choose to maintain 
the attitude of municipal disseveration and refuse to assume that supreme mas- 
tery of the situation which union of our people alone can secure. 

Some assuagement might be permitted were depredation and encroachment 
confined to the shores; but the same abuse of privileges and misuse of power 
mark the path of the corporations at the interior point where they enter our 
municipal jurisdictions and along its entire progress. We are as inadequate 
to discipline or propitiate the forces which usurp control over approaches from 
the interior by land as over over terminals at the water front. Popular right 
is still subordinated to the corporate power. Without taking counsel with 
the resident populations who, in the order of things, might be considered 
most interested, the great corporations make their approaches without question 
of lines, of terms, of method of operation, or public interest to be promoted, 
or of restoring in the interest of public health and convenience surfaces which 
their embankments and excavations have thrown out of relation. Ignoring 
city plots, grades, or topographical outline which mark adaptations to other 
business than their own, they force their way through, above, below, or around, 
as cheap instinct may best prompt, forecasting forever lines of abnormal 
development or desolation, character of future growth or decay, nature of 
industry and employment for large areas in the limits of our various cities, 
often wantonly making the havoc of neighborhoods the visible sign of their 
power and presence. If there are any who dispute their right, there are none 
to resist their might. Some village or town or minor city may cry out against 
sharper pressure, but their troubles are not of concern to disassociate neighbors. 
One by one they are encountered in detail, and in detail overmastered. Occa- 
sionally a fresh and heroic figure, embodying the authority of his bailiwick 
and resenting its wrongs, rides a tilt at the colossus, which simply waits, as 
one to whom all things shall come in time. 

The business of transportation, the assemblage of the various products 
of the country from north, south, east, and west, and their manufacture and 
redistribution, is that by which our commercial cities live and thrive. The 
roads are indispensable to all the cities and towns here, and we might in time 
become accustomed to their tyrannies, repair their ravages, and go on in our 
divided way as before, did not new apprehensions urge more strongly than 
ever concert of action to meet a fresh deployment of the railroad forces against 
our whole position in the relation in which we have considered it impregnable. 
The new demonstration indicates a purpose to divert from us, by new routes 
constructed and contemplated upon independent lines, a portion of the business 
heretofore converging at New York — a matter which will be examined further 
on in a part of this communication which discusses the geographical and 
commercial relation of this port to tributary regions, and institutes a com- 

298 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

parison between the forces of foreign and domestic trade as factors in the 
business and progress of this city. It is farthest from my intention that 
anything that is here written shall be taken as indicating hostility to these 
modern forms of corporate contrivances, by means of which such vast results 
have been achieved in the development of our country and in furtherance of 
the interests of mankind, especially when they have as an object the facilitating 
of the transportation of persons and property. They are the marvel of the 
age in which we live; experience shows, however, that they must be regulated 
and controlled by governmental intervention. 

But there are other matters of common local concern which require a common 
authority for their regulation. The atmosphere which envelops the situation, 
together with the waters which surround and penetrate it, supply the conditions 
which determine the health of all our communities. 

Upon these elements it is impossible to fasten municipal jurisdictions. 
We cannot parcel out the air among us nor partition the fleeting tides. In 
defiance of enactment by council and mayor of one city, malaria will evolve 
from the limits of another, float thence upon the free winds, and precipitate 
into the general atmosphere, for inhalation by distant patients, exotic microbes, 
bacteria, and all varieties of poisonous germic life. The procession of tides 
marches through the limits of all the municipalities, impartially collecting and 
distributing everywhere offal and sewerage loaded with contagion. Each 
community has done full duty to itself in injecting its smoke, stenches, and 
sewerage into another province or mayoralty, so that some of our people live 
in the interchange of reciprocal nuisances or medley of conglomerate nauseas. 

The police arrangements of our several municipalities are inefficient for 
general service to the exact degree in which they are subordinate to different 
authorities. The laws and ordinances are substantially the same in all our 
territorial divisions. Yet their enforcement is entrusted to four different 
police boards and as many different police systems. Law-breakers, rogues, 
and criminals ignore city boundaries in their proceedings and are cosmopolitan, 
as should be the forces for their discipline. Disorderly persons in large numbers 
often resort to some neighboring district with slender population and overpower 
its small police force, in whose behalf no other force is allowed to interfere. 
Separate jurisdictions in the divided areas thwart and impede administration 
of justice in its various fragments. A criminal escaping from the locality of 
his misdeeds to another has made a step to entire immunity or to such con- 
fusion and delay in legal processes as renders them virtually inoperative. 
The expenses of the various police organizations are augmented in the same 
ratio as that m which the value of their services is diminished. Not many 
years ago the cities of New York and Brooklyn united their health and police 
departments in joint administration. For these the lines of municipal juris- 

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THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

diction were effaced. The duties of both departments were admirably dis- 
charged under this arrangement. It is quite probable they were administered 
with too close regard to the order and health of the associate cities to suit the 
views of some engaged in pursuits and occupations which were best promoted 
by neglect of sanitary law and civil order, or that the joint administration 
conducted by a single board and staff, dispensing with a portion of those 
necessary for a double service, diminished public disbursements and lessened 
the official consequence of some public retainers. 

While there was nothing in the experience of this association of the two 
cities in these departments of administration to justify doubt of their greater 
efficiency, there may be drawn on the other hand conclusive evidences that 
more intimate and thorough association of the two governments, in all depart- 
ments, would greatly promote the welfare of both communities. They would 
not, at least, be entering upon an entirely new field in combining once more 
for cooperative work. 

It would be reasonable to suppose that, in compensation for the obvious 
sacrifice which this material isolation entails, some great and manifest advantage 
were to result; yet it is not possible to discover any, and it is difficult to imagine 
any. There prevails among some Brooklyn citizens an apprehension that 
consolidation with New York means the merger of the smaller city, yet the 
desire to be merged is manifested and promoted in every way but by that which 
will accomplish it. 

The citizens of Brooklyn are among the most active, enterprising, and suc- 
cessful men engaged in business in the metropolis. They are bankers, brokers, 
railroad officials, government clerks, merchants, lawyers, journalists, laboring 
men, truckmen, and others of all variety of employment, taking as much pride 
in the progress of the larger city as in their own, conscious that the prosperity 
of one must promote that of the other. Her eminent lawyers have more 
business in the New York courts and at the City Hall than in their own. Her 
streets are lined with spacious mansions whose cost has been defrayed from 
profits of New York trade. Her residence localities are nearer the official 
quarter of the metropolis, in the Battery district, than are the residence localities 
in the larger city; and this silent but potent fact will ever have, as it always 
has had, conclusive force, with or without legal enactment or recognition, 
to determine features of common policy and mutual cooperation. By every 
expedient which Ingenuity, capital, and inclination can devise, Brooklyn 
strives to get nearer to and to be identified and merged in the metropolis. 
The bridge across the East River was an enterprise of Brooklyn's initiation, 
and constructed mainly at her expense. Other bridges, tunnels, and new 
ferries are contemplated by her citizens to make the merger more complete. 
Reviewing what Brooklyn has done, and deliberately designed to do, in her 

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OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

efforts to establish closer and more complete relations with New York, it is 
pertinent to inquire if the attitude of political separation maintained by her 
has promoted or retarded the work? There can be but one answer to the 
question. Had the cities been one, communication between its different 
wards, by bridges or tunnels across or under the East River, would have been 
established years before it was effected, all would have been reciprocally 
benefited, and points and places which yet wait the forming touch of progress 
would have been brought into the circuit of established improvement. 

New York, too, has her misgivings in regard to the doctrine of consolidation, 
but is at the same time pursuing a policy which recognizes and promotes it. 
There was a business tradition, still surviving, to control what is called con- 
servative opinion, that all commerce, traffic, movement which did not originate 
in the lower quarter of the city, and find shipping, storage, sale, and despatch 
there, was conducted beyond the line of legitimate business and in derogation 
of the rights and privileges of their "High Mightinesses" of the ancient Amster- 
dam company, and that consolidation with the other shore means diversion 
to annexed districts of commercial advantages not properly belonging there. 
Yet the merchants of New York have been first in this work of diversion, 
first in the work of commercially habilitating the adjoining district and in 
making its utilities their own. The water front of Long Island, from Astoria 
to Bay Ridge, is largely owned, developed, built upon, and used by New 
York merchants — the docks are frequented by ships, the warehouses filled 
with merchandise by their order; New York merchants, bankers, working- 
men, own lots, blocks, and larger areas, embracing many acres, in Brooklyn, 
which they develop and pay taxes on, build railroads, houses, and labor to 
promote the growth of the city as zealously as if they resided there. 

In the days of small beginnings, when population was small and traffic 
light, there was some apparent reason for declining to distribute tne advantages 
which each separate district thought itself in some special matter and manner 
to be able to control. It was then held that there was not, and would not be, 
a sufficiency of commercial benefactions to justify expansive bestowal, but 
these benefactions are shown to be illimitable, not only enough for all, on 
whatever scale we may provide, but crowding upon us in such volume that their 
accumulation will exceed provisions for despatch however rapidly we may 
hasten it. 

The strength of opinion adverse to union is believed to reside in the official 
class, in politicians and officeholders. These on both sides of the river appre- 
hend diminution of their number and some diminution of influence under the 
change. To weakling aspirants for public honor this fear may be well enter- 
tained, but should inspire no concern to stronger natures, who will find in 
larger fields ample reward and fame. Under all conditions each community 

301 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

or section of a community must have in general assemblage its official contin- 
gent, which parts with none of its influence or individuality in combination 
with others. There is no principle so well understood and theoretically and 
practically adopted in political management as the justice and expediency 
of allowing to each portion of the general population and to each district its 
due share of the general administration; and the apprehension that any less 
populous district may lose its mfluence by annexation to a larger, is based 
upon ignorance of the theories and methods of elective governments and party 
management. 

The reflections thus far suggested refer more particularly to matters of present 
importance and to existing conditions, but a view of the situation would be 
very incomplete which did not give a glance to the future and suggest inquiry 
into the fitness of our scheme, as now formulated, to answer all the ends of 
civil admmistration of a community to be as much more populous expanded 
and wealthy, in contrast with our conditions now, as these last are in contrast 
with those prevailing fifty years ago. Plans for inaugurating what may be 
considered a new era, in the plotting of cities with relation to new methods of 
transit now being introduced, new methods of illuminating, warming, and 
ventilating, the enlarged and improved plans of domestic architecture and of 
public buildings, the adaptation of certain districts for certain uses, their 
fitness for manufactories, docks, warehouses, residences, bridge termmals, 
ferry landings, reservoirs, and railroad stations and parks, may with advantage 
to ourselves and to those who are to follow be now carefully studied and pro- 
jected. 

The cities of this port have grown up in entire misapprehension of the 
forces of their development. It is the belief now, as it has always been, that 
they owe their prosperity to the excellence of their harbor attracting foreign 
shipping to its shelter; but it can be demonstrated that foreign commerce has 
been no more than an auxiliary to the forces of domestic traffic centring 
here. There is what may be termed a certain pageantry and poetry in the 
process of foreign commerce, which attract the eye and confuse the judgment 
when these processes are compared with the more prosaic methods of domestic 
production and exchange. 

The port of New York is easily first of all of our continental ports in the 
value, bulk, and variety of foreign productions landed at her docks, and 
first in the value of exports, and to this circumstance is supposed to be due 
the fact that we are the chief of our manufacturing cities and the chief domestic 
market. 

Properly construed, however, the relation of forces is exactly reversed, and 
we are made the chief emporium of foreign commerce for the reason that we 
control, by virtue of our routes to the interior, the domestic market. It is 

302 



OF ANDREW HAS WELL GREEN 

well that we should appreciate this, so that in our eager effort to secure the 
secondary advantage we may not be led to sacrifice the primary. Defined by 
the character of the greater portion of her production and exchange, New 
York may be said to be an interior city. By the last census it appears that 
the value of the manufactures of all the cities of the port considerably exceeded 
the value of the combined foreign exports and imports. When it is estimated 
that foreign merchandise has employed no labor here, has paid no wages in 
our community, that much of it is simply shipped through the port in bulk 
to remote destination; and when it is taken into consideration that the assem- 
blage here from our own interior of crude commodities employs large amounts 
of our capital, that its transportation to this point calls for the aid of home 
labor, its manufacture calls for the aid of another labor army, and its redis- 
tribution in perfected stage still calls for another equal force of merchants, 
clerks, laboring men, porters, and carriers; and when it is further manifest 
that the ground structures and material facilities required for the preparation 
and despatch of these commodities constitute an immense share of the assessed 
wealth of the community, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the forces of 
development pertaining to our domestic business are vastly stronger than those 
of foreign commerce. New York, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the cities 
of Hudson County, New Jersey, constitute substantially the port of New 
York. In 1880, as appears by the census, there were paid out in these cities 
wages to manufacturing labor not far from the sum of $126,000,000. Adding 
to this the wages paid to labor in handling these commodities before as well 
as after manufacture, and in their final despatch to ultimate destination, we 
may approximate the amount of aggregate sums disbursed locally in our purely 
domestic business. To the degree in which our foreign trade falls short of 
disbursing a like sum among us in its various phases, to that degree is it a 
minor force in providing for us employment, substantial wages, and all the 
elements of communal wealth. Newport, in our near vicinity, has as fine a 
harbor as our own, and Norfolk a better, yet they are but little else than summer 
watering places. They are situated beyond the line of interior domestic 
movement, and cannot conveniently be made centres of domestic trade, 
without which no position can ever become commercially dominating. The 
great cities of the world and of history are and have been interior cities. The 
historic cities of Asia and of Egypt are interior. Rome, the most populous 
and powerful city of her day, had no foreign commerce as we now weigh that 
word. Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, Madrid, Brussels, Pekin, Cairo, Mexico 
Lima, Santiago, the largest cities of their respective nationalities, are interior 
cities. London is sixty-six miles from the Straits of Dover, and over three 
hundred from the Atlantic, and owes her immensity to her interior position, 
where the bridges across the Thames placed her in early times in communication 

303 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

with the areas which the river had divided, and made her a domestic thorough-' 
fare. Liverpool is situate far out of the line of direct communication with 
the open sea, and is reached, by ships engaged in foreign trade, only by long 
detour of dangerous navigation in the days when Liverpool established herself 
as chief emporium of British-Atlantic commerce. But though located at 
the point of deepest intrusion of a gulf of the Irish Sea, and thus remote from 
sea routes, she is by the same arrangement made a centring point of commerce 
for land routes, through which all communication between Wales and South- 
west England on one side and North England and Scotland must pass, and 
here in front of the great industries of Lancashire she has grown to be the 
mistress of British-Atlantic commerce. The British port which reaches 
farthest to receive foreign shipping is that of Falmouth, but the situation is 
peninsular, having remote communication with the interior; is territorially 
isolated, with no possibility of being made a domestic market; and the con- 
veniences of the port are in consequence disregarded by passing vessels, which 
pursue their voyage three or four hundred miles farther to reach the London 
and Liverpool centres. Foreign commercial movement, as governed by the 
superior forces of interior domestic movement, is no less distinctly manifested 
upon our shore. Boston is by no means the best and most accessible harbor 
in New England, but is situated at the deepest intrusion of the sea, along 
that portion of the coast where it narrows to bridging compass, and thus enables 
first communication by land between the areas which up to this point the 
sea divides, making it a thoroughfare between these areas, a general point 
of assemblage, a central domestic market, and by relation to these conditions 
the metropolis of its region and the emporium of its foreign trade. Coming 
south, the line of commercial development avoids the splendid harbor of New- 
port at the mouth of Narragansett Bay, and builds in Providence, at the head 
of this bay, at a point inaccessible to heavy foreign shipping, the second of 
New England cities; thence it proceeds southwardly on line of shortest com- 
munication to the pass between the mountains and the sea as defined by the 
termination of the Catskill range at Jersey City, and the approach of the sea 
to the mouth of the Hudson, and here in this gateway, between the sections, 
it creates New York, making it the chief centre of domestic trade and by 
relation the chief centre of foreign exchange. Continuing southerly, foreign 
commerce does not seek the most accessible and commodious accommodations 
on Delaware Bay, but rather appears to avoid them, and proceeds in long 
and tortuous navigation to the farthest reach of that estuary, to find at Phila- 
delphia, most attractive resort, a city which grew to its present magnificence 
from the circumstance that the domestic movement, north and south, found 
shortest communication through the position, after the impediment of the 
Schuylkill River had been neutralized by bridge. Foreign commercial move- 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

ment, still controlled by the same law, avoids the nearer and more commodious 
accommodations of the Chesapeake Bay, and pushes on for 250 miles to those 
most remote and of least accommodation at Baltimore, located at the most 
westerly advance of that bay, at a point through which interior movement 
is compelled to pass; thence proceeding, to avoid the obstruction of the broader 
Potomac, it crosses at the head of tidewater, constitutes Alexandria and 
Georgetown the centres of domestic trade of that region, and so of foreign 
commerce, and finds at the end of navigation for small craft, on the James 
River at Richmond, a situation best adapted to the uses of a central domestic 
market, and creates there the chief foreign market for an immense and fertile 
region, leaving unemployed at Norfolk the best harbor of our coast. There 
are thus great cities without harbors and great harbors without cities. There 
are also great cities without any foreign trade whatever, and of those which 
do have large external commerce it will be found in all that the volume of 
interior trade vastly excels it. 

New York was once situate at the single point of convergence of superior 
routes, from many regions upon which interior trade and travel was compelled 
to concentrate, but these conditions exist no longer. The business of trans- 
porting freight and passengers is progressive. Improvements have been made 
in roadbeds, rails, cars, stations, locomotives, and bridges. Notwithstanding 
natural advantages, New York cannot afford to neglect the equipment of 
her routes, or allow them to be inferior to other routes laid upon lines indepen- 
dent of her, upon lines which do not touch her position, upon lines constructed 
for the express purpose of diverting her trade — yet that is exactly what we 
do allow, and is just what many champions of public welfare strenuously 
advocate. When the route now constructed between Boston and Philadelphia 
and their relatmg regions by way of Poughkeepsie Bridge shall be in full opera- 
tion, and the route now under construction between districts heretofore tributary 
to us shall be completed by a bridge crossing at Peekskill, the unbridged line 
by New York will be discriminated against to the extent of fifty cents of 
passenger fare and an hour's despatch, thirty cents per ton on freight and 
possibly days in despatch. The entire relation of the city to some of the most 
afHuent tributaries is changed. 

Whether we shall have the best or worst roads to our sources of supply depend 
upon the view we take of the construction of a bridge across the Hudson 
River at this point. Apart from the importance of such a structure as per- 
fecting communication with remote tributaries, it is indispensable as a local 
convenience. Farther, in an area in New Jersey, comprised in a circuit drawn 
twenty-five miles from our City Hall, is a population equal to that of Kings 
County, of which 50,000 persons go and come daily to and from the metropolis. 
In every relation but in that of political jurisdiction this area is a suburb 

305 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

of New York. There are, moreover, so many enterprises for remodelling the 
business of the city, and its movement — such as the widening and deepening 
of Harlem River for the accommodation of the canal-boat fleet; the concurrent 
improvement of the ship passage through the Sound and Hell Gate, with a view 
of making the upper portion of the city a resort for foreign ships coming 
by way of the Sound; and the completion of the Baltimore & Ohio route, 
which opens a new route south for Brooklyn and New York — that a strong 
guard must be thrown out to protect against disturbance the old line of freight 
and travel despatch upon which many hundreds of millions of dollars have 
been expended in various agencies, accessories, and accommodations, and 
which constitute an immense share of our wealth and business. 

The great cities of the West are growing by the influence of interior trade. 
Chicago presents some features in her development which we may with advan- 
tage study. It is generally held that this great city owes her prosperity to 
the opportunities of Lake Michigan, but if conditions be rightly construed it 
will be found that it is more due to the obstruction by the lake to the projection 
of roads through any other point. For a breadth of nearly five hundred miles 
the lake system prevents the construction of trunk lines over tne area into 
which its convolutions enter, and it is only where the obstruction ceases at 
the southern limit of Lake Michigan, where Chicago stands, that the delayed 
routes find transit, and speediest communication is found between the states 
of the Northeast and the Northwest. In this arrangement will be found 
the chief strength of the position; while the lake, having served its chief use 
as a barrier to other land routes, has in an auxiliary way supplied a capacious 
water route. Had the lake been a river easily crossed by bridges through 
its entire length, Chicago would have been distributed in attenuate settlements 
along all its banks instead of being massed in gathered strength at its head. 
As it is, her position is made impregnable to the north by nature, and the 
energy, enterprise, and intelligence of her people have rendered its southern 
front equally so. The position of New York is still more commanding if its 
relations be intelligently examined and maintained. The sea serves for it 
the double service of obstruction to any other land route between the American 
areas which the sea here separates, and affords at the same time opportunities 
of its world-reaching water routes. To the east therefore the situation is 
impregnable. There is no reason why it should not be on the west. This 
the line of shortest communication between our northern and southern regions, 
and the line directed through this point passes in all its extension over surfaces 
most easily reducible to economic transportation and travel. These conditions 
are not, however, so strong by nature that they may not be flanked and turned. 
Neglect to develop and improve natural facilities of transport may prompt, 
as they have done, competing routes upon lines remote and independent of us. 

306 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

The Hudson River and the parallel mountains have heretofore been guides 
for all movement to this point and guards against movement elsewhere, but 
have ceased to serve us so absolutely in this character. Engineering skill 
has reduced the impediments of the mountains and bridged the river far above 
this position, and there is already in successful operation a road, powerfully 
organized, which will divert to its lines an immense business heretofore de- 
spatched upon our routes. Other roads and bridges are chartered and contem- 
plated, all of which will to their capacity undermine and supplant this point 
as entrepot between sections heretofore unavoidably tributary to it. With 
the construction of a route equipped with a bridge crossing the Hudson above 
us, our unbridged line may soon cease, if it has not already ceased, to be the 
one of cheapest transport and travel, and, though it still remains the shortest, 
it is not perhaps of quickest despatch. We are therefore brought to a point 
in our progress where we must compete for the elements of business of which 
we have had until now undisputed control. 

The evidences cited of the superior influences of domestic trade in the 
development of great commercial cities, and of their capacity to draw to their 
centres, through many impediments, foreign commerce and its ships, should 
impress the truth that neglect of our domestic routes involves the smaller 
use of our sea routes; that a diminution of the strength of the position as an 
entrepot of domestic trade correspondingly diminishes its strength as an empo- 
rium of foreign commerce. 

It is not impossible that some competing intelligences demonstrating upon 
other lines, and some cooperative ignorance demonstrating upon our own, may 
in time bring about the result that New York shall be operated in the chief 
relation as a seaport and serve to some interior position the secondary use that 
Hamburg renders to Berlin, that Havre renders to Paris, Southampton to 
London, Vera Cruz to Mexico, Valparaiso to Santiago, and Callao to Lima. 
Intelligent citizens of all the cities of the port will in time understand, however, 
how disastrous such tendencies must be to all their interests, and unite in 
common policy to conserve the conditions which have made us primarily 
the first manufacturing community, have centred here the chief continental 
domestic market, and by this relation alone have made this the principal 
seat of foreign commercial exchange. This common policy cannot, with best 
advantage, be advanced by the loose municipal formations in which we permit 
ourselves to be divided, but by presenting a consolidated front to all rivalries. 
In combined strength we are adequate to any encounters. Division exposes 
us to the vicissitudes of incoherent plans resulting in possible defeat, and to 
the certainty in any event that the fruits of whatever victory we may secure 
will be less ample and satisfactory. 

This review of the situations involving considerations of the relative strength 



THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

of foreign and domestic agencies in the maintenance and progression of our 
intermunicipal schemes is essential to proper understanding of the work before 
us, and is submitted with the design to suggest that in planning for the city 
of the future there should be provision for all the domestic and interior agencies 
by which alone great cities live; that the adaptations of certain areas to specific 
uses, such as factories, docks, bridges, terminals, and markets, should be 
now examined, so that progress may deploy in symmetrical lines. In plotting 
the surface for occupation by the incoming peoples, the situation covered by 
our several municipalities must be treated as a whole and single area. Proper 
lines and general configuration of land and water spaces hold relation to each 
other which cannot, without loss of accommodation and symmetry, be ignored. 
These adaptations have not been studied in the multifarious schemes upon 
which development has so far been variously made, and which in some respects 
are inadequate to the needs of the future, as is the arrangement of streets, 
alleys, courts, and places of the lower portion of this city to the business con- 
ducted there at this day. Were that section now open to such projection 
as should best economize space, promote convenience, and insure despatch, 
the arrangement would be quite different. Efforts to correct existing faults 
have been costly and but partially successful. Propositions to widen Church 
Street and extend it, to widen Nassau Street, to extend Wall Street westerly, 
and Center Street northerly, are samples of many measures yearly presented 
to the consideration of the authorities, but are forbidden by the immense cost 
which would attend them. The expansion of the city has made necessary 
more ample and expeditious transit between the widening areas than was 
needed fifty years ago, but this, though oniy partly secured, has been effected 
by severest exercise of public right and power over private property and 
privilege. The first settled portion of Brooklyn was plotted with no compre- 
hension of the great city of which it was the nucleus. The development of 
Long Island City and Staten Island has been made upon lines different from 
those which would have been approved had projectors appreciated their future 
use. What has been done cannot be undone, but a lesson may be derived 
from experience; we can learn that in the work of building up towns it is more 
difficult to correct the past than to open up the future, and so arrange our 
plans with regard to future need that there shall be fewer faults to correct. 

There are some considerations pertinent to the subject which, referring 
neither to its material nor official aspect, are yet more important than either. 
Organized for contention, as the arrangement here is, it develops issues for 
which, in the absence of any arbitrament among ourselves, we are compelled 
to resort to the authorities of the State and Nation for adjustment, which 
other American communities differently situated are enabled to reach without 
such extraneous recourse. Complexities requiring solution by State or Federal 

308 



OF ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

intervention must increase in number and intensity as approximation brings 
nearer together the forces of difference, at the same time increasing, as the 
years go by, the number of participants and insuring to the movements of 
these larger masses the character and energy of popular tumults. Appeals 
for intervention on the part of the citizens here, familiarity with it, and the 
habit of exercising it by authorities not local, create in all quarters a misunder- 
standing of the relation between citizens, municipalities. State and Nation. 
Based throughout all its lines of foundation upon the principle of self- 
government, every appeal for intervention and every exercise of intervening 
authority is a denial of the validity of that principle. 

There are none more prompt than our citizens in all this vicinity to criticise 
and take exceptions to the employment of extraneous authorities for internal 
redress, but a fairer and more reasonable view would direct criticism and 
censure to the conditions of our own making, out of which must inevitably 
proceed the contentions and issue which render intervention unavoidable. 
I desire here to impress the consideration that a state of affairs becoming 
chronic is dislocating our theories and practice of civil administration as under- 
stood elsewhere in this country, and is ripening to that consummation which 
will vest all authority for the regulation of the cities of this vicinage in bodies 
which they neither elect nor control nor advise. 

Moved by influences easily recognized, there has been for many years a 
growing tendency among modern people to mass themselves in cities. It may 
be explained in the increase in the variety, quantity, and value of manufactures 
produced in cities, and the release from the farm of many whose labor is now 
accomplished by the employment of machinery, and the larger fields of daily 
supply opened by modern transportation. To such a degree has this tendency 
of populations to the cities proceeded, and so many novel questions of policy 
are presented, that a new problem arises in governmental science, and the 
gdvernment of great cities has become a new study of paramount interest. 
However divided upon minor topics, the American people cherish the faith 
that this problem will find solution in the adequacy of every community to 
govern itself; but to accomplish this it is a self-evident proposition that every 
harmonious community, one by circumstance of vicinage, by daily personal 
intercourse of its members, by identification of interests, properties, pursuit, 
and aspiration, should be endowed and invested with authority for its own 
control, and not dissevered into varied forms of multiple governments, which 
imply and create in their very condition differences and misgovernment. 

It remains to be said that the question of government of great cities is 
nowhere else brought to such conspicuous trial as it now undergoes in this 
single commonwealth of divided municipalities. Great as our interests in 
this result are, they are trivial in comparison with those which our example 



ANDREW HASWELL GREEN 

will affect through this country, the world, and history, and without exaggeration 
it may be said that we owe it to ourselves, to all our countrymen, and perhaps 
even to mankind, to eliminate from this test of popular institutions now pro- 
ceeding all unnecessary factors of disturbance, and allow the principle of 
self-government fair dispositions for aquittal against the incompetencies 
which factitious conditions of multiplicity of governments in the same sphere 
have heretofore made it subject of reproach. 

Experience of the past and revelations of the future inspire the belief that 
the time has now arrived when new methods of administration on broader 
scale must be adopted to meet the wider and still expanding situation, and 
that the measure which I have the honor to submit is but signal of an inevitable 
and imminent future and admonition to prepare for its coming. 

Andrew H. Green. 



310 



INDEX 



Adams, Campbell W., State Engineer and 
Surveyor and member consolidation 
charter commission, 194 

Advertising patronage used by Tweed Ring, 
for corruption of the press, 126; $1,000,- 
000 disbursed annually by Mayor Hall, 
in corporate advertising, 126, 133 

Agassiz, Alexander, signs memorial in plea 
for Niagara Reservation, 220 

Agriculture, Scientific, early suggested by 
Andrew H. Green, 70 

Aldermen, Board of, ask report from 
Comptroller on various questions as to 
city finances, 155 

Allemeine Zeilung, a newspaper of Augs- 
burg, Germany, on New York political 
situation, 144 

American Scenic and Historic Preservation 
Society, founded, 225; aims and objects, 
225; instrumental in creation of eight 
state parks, 227; memorial adopted on 
death of Andrew H. Green, 227; hold 
memorial services following his funeral, 
263 

American Museum of Natural History, 
founded, 206; site designated in Central 
Park, 207 

American Zoological and Botanical Society, 
created by Act of Legislature, 203 

Anderson, Martin B., member of commis- 
sion on Niagara Reservation, 221 

Appleton, WUliam H., charter member, 
American Zoological and Botanical 
Society, 204 

Arnold, Samuel Green, early friendship, 12; 
deathbed message, 12; on Providence 
shipping, 16; obtains for Andrew H. 
Green commissionership of Deeds of 
Rhode Island, 23; historian of Rhode 
Island, 237 

Aspinwall, William H., charter member of 
American Zoological and Botanical 
Society, 203 

Assessment bonds reach formidable amount 
of $21,500,000, 143 

Assessments, Bureau for the Collection of, 
transferred to Department of Finance, 
146 



Astor, J. J., one of committee of leading 
business men misled into signing certi- 
ficate of correctness of Tweed Ring books, 

Bailey, T., charter member American Zo- 
ological and Botanical Society, 204 

Barney, Hiram, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Beekman, James W., charter member 
American 2k)6logical and Botanical 
Society, 204 

Belmont, August, in controversy with 
Central Park Commission regarding 
plans, 54; Evening Post comment no, 55; 
charter member American Zoological and 
Botanical Society, 204 

Bigelow, John, his first vote, 19; files affi- 
davits for Andrew H. Green, 22; leaves 
Green in charge of his business while out 
of town, 30; on Tildcn establishing a 
paper, 31; on City Charter Act, 88; one 
of the executors of estate of Samuel J. 
Tilden, 209; pallbearer at funeral of 
Andrew H. Green, 263 

Blatchford, R. M., retires from Park Com- 
mission, 89 

Bleecker, Anthony J., appointed on com- 
mission of estimate and assessment for 
appraising proposed addition to Central 
Park, 58. 

Bliss, George, with others, urges establish- 
ment of a museum of natural history in 
Central Park, 205 

Blodgett, William T., with others, urges 
estabhshment of a museum of natural 
history in Central Park, 205 

Board of Audit created by Legislature, 1 18 

Board of Examiners appointed to determine 
validity of claims for city advertising, 128 

Bogert, John, appointed as State Engineer 
on Consolidation Commission, 186 

Bonny, B. W., charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society. 204 

Booth, William A., statement to, by 
Andrew H. Green, giving review of his 
publx service, 107; chairman Joint In- 
vestigation Committee, 140; with others 



311 



INDEX 



receives statement from Andrew H. 
Green on his position in regard to public 
improvements, 174 
Bovee, C. N., charter member American 

Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 
Bradford, Alexander W. charter member 
American Zoological and Botanical 
Society, 204 
Bradish, Luther, on second commission for 
appraisal of proposed Central Park addi- 
tion, 58 
Brady, James T., speaks at mass meeting 
in favor of Calhoun, 30 
Brinckerhoff, John H., appointed on Con- 
solidation Commission, 187 
Broadway Bank, depository of the County 

Treasurer, during Tweed regime, 92 
Brooklyn, her charter opposed by New 
York, 178; contends against consolida- 
tion with New York, 179; consolidation 
effected, 194 
Brooklyn Eagle, article on "Comptroller 
Green and His Difficulties," 137; resents 
efforts in behalf of a greater city, 192 
Brooks, Phillips, signs memorial in plea for 

Niagara Reservation. 220 
Brown, E. D., one of committee of leading 
business men misled by Tweed Ring 
into signing certificate of correctness of 
books, 165 
Brown, James, with others, urges establish- 
ment of a museum of natural history in 
Central Park, 205 
Brown, Vernon A., on commission for 

building i8ist street bridge, 255 
Bryant, William Cullen, in social life, 30 
Bureau for the collection of Assessments 
transferred from Department of Public 
Works to Department of Finance, 146 
Burnley, William, employs Andrew H. 

Green in Trinidad, 19 
Burritt, Elihu, assists Andrew H. Green 

in studies of languages, 18 
Butler, Charles, charter member American 

Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 
Butterworth, John F., member first Board 
of Commissioners of Central Park, 49; 
retires from Commission, 89 

Cadwalader, John L., one of the pall- 
bearers at funeral of Andrew H. Green, 
263 

Caldwell, William, charter member Ameri- 
can Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Canal Ring, successfully attacked by 
Governor Tilden, 163 



Carlyle, Thomas, signs memorial in plea 

for Niagara Reservation, 220 
Cathcart, George R., appointed on Con- 

soUdation Commission, 187 
Central Park, commission of nine appointed 
f orlaying out park, 40 ; Legislature passes 
Act for regulation and government imder 
board of eleven commissioners, 49; early 
description of, by Dr. Edward Hagaman 
Hall, 50; difficulties of developing, 50; 
Commission elects officers and appoints 
committees, 51; creates office of Comp- 
troller placing Andrew H. Green in 
charge, 53; Frederick Law Olmsted 
made Superintendent, 53; prizes offered 
for best plans for laying out park, 53; 
enlargement of park advocated, 56; res- 
olutions of approval adopted by Com- 
mon Coimcil, vetoed by Mayor Tieman, 
57; Park Board appeals to Legislature, 
57; bill passed enabling Board to acquire 
title to lands, 58; Legislature memorial- 
ized for additional necessary powers, 
61; observatory proposed, 62; question 
of establishing museums of art and nat- 
ural history, zoological and botanical 
gardens, 62; Board approves erection 
of conservatory, 62; the park as an edu- 
cational feature, 63; labor in park of 
great benefit during war-time stagnation, 
65; increased value of nearby property 
due to enlargement of park, 67; Civil 
Service principles applied to employees, 
67; pohticians attempt to control pat- 
ronage, 68; question of zoological and 
botanical collections again taken up, 69; 
power conferred on Board to lay out 
northern sections of the city, devise plans 
for improvement of rivers, etc., 72; under 
dominance of Sweeny, 107; new park 
commission organized, 107; Park Board 
is memorialized to establish a museum of 
natural history, 205 
Chandler, J. Winthrop, charter member 
American Zoological and Botanical 
Society, 204 
Charter Commission on consolidation of 
Greater New York, appointed by Gover- 
nor Morton, 194 
Church, Frederick E., member new park 
commission on overthrow of Tweed Ring, 
107; appointed on Park Board, 174; in- 
terested in preserving natural beauty of 
Niagara Falls, 217 
Citizens' Association, organized to expose 
official corruption, 86; misled by Tweed 
Ring, 87; 



312 



INDEX 



Citizens' Committee, appointed to examine 
into public accounts, report infamous 
frauds and robberies, ii6 

Citizens' Investigating Committee appeal 
to Legislature to remedy evils of street 
opening proceedings, 143 

City and County Debt $112 per capita, 142 

Civil Service principles early put in practice 
by Andrew H. Green, 67 

Civil War, effect of, on park construction, 
65; as an influence on the political cor- 
ruption of New York, 82 

Clapp, Hawley D., appointed on commis- 
sion of estimate and assessment for pro- 
posed addition to Central Park, 58 

Gierke, Judge, appoints commissioners of 
estimate and assessment on proposed 
addition to Central Park, 58 

Cleveland, Governor Grover, signs bill 
authorizing selection and location of 
Niagara Reservation, and appoints 
commissioners, 221 

Clinton, DeWitt, Mayor of New York, 43 

Clute, John D., charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Colgate, Robert, with others, urges estab- 
hshment of a museum of natural history 
in Central Park, 205 

Commercial Advertiser, New York, on 
Deputy Comptroller Green's control of 
financial difficulties, in 

Connolly, Charles M., charter member 
American Zoological and Botanical 
Society, 204 

Connolly, Richard B., Comptroller under 
Tweed Ring dominance, 84, 90; selected 
as scapegoat by the Ring seeks advice 
of Samuel J. Tilden, 97; letter to William 
F. Havemeyer on appointing Andrew H. 
Green, Deputy Comptroller, 98; letter to 
Mr. Green, 98; resigns as Comptroller, 
114 

Conservation of forests and scientific agri- 
culture early suggested by Andrew H. 
Green, 70 

Consolidation Commission, created by 
Legislature, 186; personnel, 187; me- 
morial to Legislature, 189 

Cooley, James E., member first Board of 
Commissioners of Central Park, 49; 
elected president of Board, 51 

Cooper, Peter, President of the Citizens' 
Association, 86 

Cornell, Governor, receives memorial 
petitioning for the Niagara Reservation 
but does not favor project, 220 

Costigan Bill, conferring on Mayor power 



to remove heads of city departments, 
and aimed at Comptroller Green, intro- 
duced in Legislature, 153; attempt to 
force through by Tammany Hall, 154; 
opposed by Governor Tilden, 154; New 
York Times comment against, 154; New 
York Sun, also asks for its defeat, 154; 
Senate refuses to endorse, 158 

Council, Common, early misgovemment 
by, 79 

Courier and Enquirer comment on "Sledge- 
hammer Argument " of Andrew H. Green 
as President of Board of Commissioners 
in controversy over Central Park plans. 

Court-house Commission absorbed by the 
Board of Supervisors, 82 

Crosby, Assemblyman Ernest H., intro- 
duces in Legislature a bill providing for 
commission to inquire into subject of 
consolidation, 182 

Crosby, John P., charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Curtis, George William, appointed on Con- 
solidation Commission, but declined, 187 

Cutting, R. Fulton, of Bureau of Municipal 
Research, on recent reforms effected, 256 

Daily Register awarded contract for city 
advertising for $9,500, the former 
"official journal" rate being $250,000, 
129 

Daly, Joseph F., member of citizens Asso- 
ciation, but installed in office imder 
Tweed Ring, 87 

Davis, Judge Noah, charges bribery of six 
Republican senators, 90 

Debt of New York City, explanation of 
gross increase, 140 

Delafield, Henry, charter member Am- 
erican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

De Peyster, Frederick, charter member 
American Zoological and Botanical 
Society, 204 

Devlin, Charles, alleged to have purchased 
street commissionership from Mayor 
Wood for $50,000, 48 

Devoe, Frederic W., appointed on Consoli- 
dation Commission, 187; pallbearer at 
funeral of Andrew H. Green, 263 

De Witt, Simeon, on commission appointed 
to lay out streets ot city, 43, 244 

De Witt, Wilham C, member Consolida- 
tion Charter Commission, 194 

Dickens, Charles, description of Broadway 
in 1842, 42 



313 



INDEX 



Dillon, John F., member of Consolidation 
Charter Commission, 194 

Dillon, Robert J., member first board of 
Commissioners of Central Park, 49, 88; 
attempts to change plans of board, 54; 
Evening Post's comment on, 55; charter 
member American Zoological and Botan- 
ical Society, 204 

Dongan, Thomas, Lieutenant-Governor 
and Vice- Admiral of New York, 77 

Doremus, R. O., charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Dorsheimer, William, member of commis- 
sion on Niagara Reservation, 221 

Dow, Charles M., one of the pallbearers at 
funeral of Andrew H. Green, 263 

Dufferin, Earl of, suggests that govern- 
ments of Ontario and New York form 
international park on both sides of Niag- 
ara Falls, 218 

Dunster, Henry, first president of Harvard 
College, 3 

Dutcher, Silas B., member of consolidation 
Charter Commision, 194 

Earle, Abraham L., Auditor of Accounts, 
communication regarding unjust claim 
ordered to pay by Supreme Court, 135 

Elias, Hannah, negress protegee of man for 
whom Andrew H. Green was mistaken 
when shot, 262 

EUiott, Charles W., member first Board of 
Commissioners of Central Park, 50; 
elected secretary of Board, 51 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, signs memorial in 
plea for Niagara Reservation, 220 

Erie Railroad Litigation shows calibre of 
Tweed Ring judges, 115 

Erie Railroad seized by Fisk and Gould, 86 

Evening Mail on character of Andrew H. 
Green, 240 

Evening Post referring to Andrew H. Green 
as President Board of Education, 35; 
comment on changes of plans of Central 
Park Commission as advocated by 
August Belmont and Robert J. DUlon, 
54; on character of Andrew H. Green, 240 

Field, Benjamin H.. charter member 
American Zoological and Botanical 
Society, 204; with others, urges establish- 
ment of a museum of natural history in 
Central Park. 205 

Field, Cyrus W., charter member Ameri- 
can Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Field, Thomas E., member first Board of 
Commissioners of Central Park, 49, 88 



Fish, Hamilton, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 203 

Fish and Gould aided in their seizure of the 
Erie Railroad by the Tweed Ring, 86 

Fitch, Ashbel P., appointed member of 
Consohdation Charter Commission, but 
did not qualify, 194 

Flower, Gov. Roswell P., signs consohda- 
tion referendum biU, 188 

Foley, John, obtains injunction against 
comptroller paying f u rther claims, 95 

Folsom, George, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Foster, Frederick G., charter member 
American Zoological and Botanical 
Society, 204 

Freeman's Journal and Catholic Register, 
article on public school system, 39; on 
character of Andrew H. Green, 240 

Garretson, Garret J., member of Con- 
solidation Charter Commission, 194 

Garvey, Andrew J., impHcated in frauds of 
1871, 92 

Gas Companies overcharges regulated by 
Comptroller Green, 166 

Gerry, Elbridge T., one of the pallbearers 
at funeral of Andrew H. Green, 263 

Gilroy, Thomas F., appointed member of 
Consolidation Charter Commission, 194 

Gleason, Patrick Jerome, Mayor of Long 
Island City and member of Consolidation 
Charter Commission, 194 

Globe on character of Andrew H. Green, 240 

Godwin, Parke, in social life, 30; charter 
member American Zoological and Botan- 
ical Society, 204 

Gould and Fisk aided by the Tweed Ring 
86 

Grant, Ulysses S., ambition for third term 
as President, combated by Samuel J. 
Tilden, 152 

Gray, Asa, signs memorial in plea for 
Niagara Reservation, 220 

Gray, J. A., charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Gray, John A. C, member first Board of 
Commissioners of Central Park, 49; 
elected vice-president of Board, 51 

Greater New York, early advocated by 
Andrew H. Green, 176; consolidation not 
favored by Brooklyn 178; Act passed by 
Legislature to create commission to con- 
sider consolidation 186; commission re- 
quests Andrew H. Green to draft bill 
for submission to Legislature, 187; bill 
fails of passage, 187; another bill intro- 



314 



INDEX 



duced at next session also fails to pass, 
i88; Consolidation League formed in 
Brooklyn, 188; Referendum Bill re-in- 
troduced, passed both houses and signed 
by Governor Flower, 188; election of 
1894 decides for amalgamation, 189; 
bill as introduced failing of passage, an 
act was passed annexing to New York 
the Westchester County section, 192; 
Senator Lexow introduces resolution 
providing for joint committee of both 
houses to investigate consolidation, 193; 
committee recommends bill amended to 
provide for appointment by Governor 
of new commission for drafting charter, 
193; consoHdation bill passed and Gov- 
ernor Morton appoints members of 
Charter Commission, 194; charter pre- 
sented to Legislature and Act passed 
uniting City and County of New York, 
City of Brooklyn and County of Kings, 
County of Richmond and part of County 
of Queens, 194; its area, population and 
other statistics, 195 ; its government and 
executives, 195 el scq.; public celebration 
of the consolidation arranged but aban- 
doned on account of war with Spain, 198 
Greeley, Horace, candidate for President 

131 
Green, Andrew Haswell, ancestry, 3; his 
parental home life, 6; leaves home for 
New York, 9; his first employment, 9; 
his commercial training, business exact- 
ness, conscientiousness, religion, 10; 
friendship with Samuel G. Arnold, 12; 
on foreign ships in New York, 17; 
baptism, 19; his first vote, 19; sails for 
Barbadoes, 19; impressions of the negro, 
20; on labor situation in Trinidad, 21; 
arrives in New York, 22; studies law, 22; 
takes management of home farm, 25, 
229; opens law office, 26; connection with 
Samuel J. Tilden, 28 ; political enthusiasm, 
30; on high tariff and direct taxation, 
32; declines nomination for Assembly, 
32; appointed School Commissioner. 2,y, 
elected President Board of Education, 
34; on equalization of school tax levy, 37; 
address to Board of Education, 140; 
member first Board of Commissioners of 
Central Park, 49; appointed on special 
committee of same, 51 ; and on committee 
to draft by-laws of Board, 5 1 ; placed on 
important standing committees, 51; 
elected Treasurer of Board, 51; made 
its President, 53; placed in charge of 
Central Park as Comptroller, 53; advo- 



cates enlargement of park, 56; proposes 
widening Seventh Avenue, 58; argues 
against suspension of park work during 
war time, 65; early advocates Civil 
Service principles in conduct of park, 67; 
proposes what is now known as scientific 
agriculture and forest Conservation, 70; 
warns against encroachment of streets 
by stoops and other obstructions, 75; 
goes abroad to study municipal improve- 
ment and public works, 76; with four 
Tweed Ring politicians on new Park 
Commission, 88; eulogized by retiring 
Park Board, 89; appointed deputy- 
comptroller by Richard B. Connolly 98; 
his oath of office refused by Mayor Hall, 
100; the problems before him with a 
bankrupt treasury, 102, 165; constantly 
harassed by the Ring, 104, 108, no, 112; 
weeds out incompetent and useless ap- 
pointments, 105; his circular heads of 
bureaus of Department of Finance, 106; 
defends his uptown improvements, 108; 
appointed as Comptroller of the city 
and County, 114; his memorial to the 
Legislature stating that either economy 
must be practised or taxes raised, 119; 
address to staU owners in Washington 
Market, 122; invites public bids for ferry 
leases, market privileges, sale of city 
bonds and stocks ,etc., 123; refusal to 
pay their unjust claims provokes hostility 
of most of the newspapers, 126 el seq.; 
appoints Board of Examiners to audit 
bills for $3,000,000 claimed for city ad- 
vertising, 128; succeeds in having the 
Daily Register awarded contract for city 
advertising for $9,500, the former 
"official journal" rate being $250,000, 
129; steadfastly supported by the Ger- 
man element, 129; memorialized by dele- 
gation representing German-American 
Reform Associations, 129; supported in 
policy of strictly auditing all claims by 
Mayor Havemeyer, 132; opposed by 
newspaper lobby with renewed activity 
132; reply to resolution of State Senate 
asking for statement of amounts paid for 
advertising to various newspapers for 
preceding three years, 132; attacked 
editorially by New York Herald, 135; 
commended by Brooklyn Eagle, 137; 
difficulties augmented by financial panic 
of 1873, 139; personally raises money in 
Wall Street for Citj' bonds, 142; attempt 
made on his life by means of infernal 
machine sent through mail, 144; assailed 



315 



INDEX 



by Mayor Wickham, 153; his report in 
response to resolutions of Board of 
Aldermen confutes his assailants, 155 
et seq., 167; newspaper attacks somewhat 
abated, 158; nominated for mayor by 
New York Herald, previously antag- 
onistic, 159; urged for governor by news- 
papers, 159, 241; preferred not to accept 
nomination, 160; term as comptroller 
expires, November, 1876, but holds 
office until appointment of Mr. John 
Kelly in December following, 160; his 
statement as to what had been accom- 
phshed while in office, 160; regulates over- 
charges of gas companies, 166; fighting 
iniquitous bills before the Legislature, 
169; asked by Assembly to furnish 
recommendations for reducing municipal 
expenses, 170; his reply, lyi et seq.; re- 
organizes the Park Board, 174; elected 
treasurer, but dechnes, 174; active in 
formation of MetropoUtan Museum of 
Art, Museum of Natural History, and 
Zoological Gardens, 174; addresses com- 
munications to William Booth and others 
indicating his position on public improve- 
ments, 174 et seq.; plans for tunnels and 
bridges to Long Island and Westchester, 
176; early advocate merging of Brooklyn 
and New York, 177; the "father of 
the Greater New York," 178, 200; sug- 
gests a "local Legislature" for govern- 
ment of enlarged city, 182; appointed on 
Consolidation Committee, 187; on new 
commission for drafting charter, 193; 
presented with medal commemorating 
consolidation of Greater New York in 
recognition of his public services, 199; 
letter from presentation committee, 199; 
description of medals, 200; Board of 
Alderman appropriate $2,650 for his 
portrait, 202; chosen president New 
York Zoological Society, 204; and applies 
for allotment of land in Bronx Park, 
205; advocates establishing a museum 
of natural history, 205; remarks advo- 
cating study of natural history and 
natural sciences in public schools, 205; 
retires from presidency of Zoological 
Society, 208; trustee of Museum of Nat- 
ural History and of the Metropolitan 
Museum ot Art, 208; one of executors 
of estate of Samuel J. Tilden, 208; 
trustee, New York Public Library, 212; 
contends against removal of the City 
Hall, 213; executor of estate of William 
B. Ogden, 216; becomes interested in 



preserving the beauty of Niagara Falls, 
216; appointed on commission of State 
Reservation, 221; founder of American 
Scenic and Historic Preservation Society 
225; devotion to his father and sisters 
and home life at Green Hill, 229 et seq.; 
travels in the middle West, 232; letter 
describing trip to Washington and Mt. 
Vernon, 232; much impressed with 
Chicago, 233, 234; his literary tastes, 
235; presents memorial tablet to Green- 
ville Baptist Church, 236; speaks of 
family ancestry, 237; his position on 
restriction of immigration, 238; his 
character as judged by his contempo- 
raries, the testimony of newspapers and 
of public men, 239 et seq.; his part in 
the development of upper section of the 
city, 243, et seq.; advocates a speedway 
for driving horses, 247; on husbanding 
city revenues and guaging improvements 
to the needs of property holders, 249; 
his permanent influence on city adminis- 
tration 251; planning of the Washington 
Bridge over the Harlem, 254; mentioned 
as candidate for mayor at almost every 
election, 257; New York Sun's editorial 
on his fitness for the office, 258; his 
serious iUness incapacitates hun for 
further activity, 259; his protest against 
new barge canal, 260; his interest in 
fair treatment of educated Chinese, 260; 
his assassination, 260; family decline 
civic funeral, 262; his funeral services, 
262; memorial services, following the 
funeral, held by City of New York and 
various societies, 263 

Green, John, member of Committee of 
Safety during Revolution, great grand- 
father of Andrew H. Green, 4 

Green, Lucy M., sister of Andrew H. 
Green, 19; conducts school for yoimg 
ladies, 25 

Green, Mary R., sister of Andrew H. and 
Lucy M., with whom is interested in 
young ladies' school, 19, 25 

Green, Samuel, settles Leicester, Mass., 
3; marries Elizabeth Upham, 4 

Green, Dr. Samuel Fiske, brother of 
Andrew H. Green, 6; letter referring to 
devotion of his brother to their father, 
William E. Green, 229; letter to sisters 
at Green Hill, 235 

Green, Samuel S., address of presentation 
of memorial tablet to Greenville Baptist 
Church, 236 

Green, Thomas, settles in Massachusetts, 3 



316 



INDEX 



Green, Thomas, the third, physician and 
pastor, 3 

Green, Timothy R., cousin of Andrew H., 14 

Green William Elijah, father of Andrew H. 
Green, 4 

Green Memorial Fund, income used to 
sustain American Scenic and Historic 
Preservation Society, 227; fund created 
by heirs of Andrew H. Green, 228 

GrinneU, Henry, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Grinnell, M. H., retires from Park Com- 
mission, 89 

Grout, Comptroller, one of the pallbearers 
at funeral of Andrew H. Green. 263 

Haines, W. A., with others, urges establish- 
ment of a museum of natural history in 
Central Park, 205 

Hall, Dr. Edward Hagaman, description of 
Central Park, 50; biographer of Andrew 
H. Green, 67; on increased valuation of 
contiguous land attributable to en- 
largement of Central Park, 67; secretary 
of committee on presentation of memorial 
medal to Andrew H. Green, 199; on 
difficulties in securing Niagara Reser- 
vation, 233; secretary of American Scenic 
and Historic Preservation Society, 225 

Hall, A. Oakey, District-Attorney under 
Tweed regime, 84; as mayor appoints 
four Ring politicians on Park Commis- 
sion with Andrew H. Green, 88; augments 
Tweed influence, 90; refuses to accept 
Andrew H. Green's oath of office as 
Deputy-Comptroller, 100; feigns sur- 
prise at gravity of charges made by 
New York Times and suggests that 
committees be appointed to examine 
records, 116 

Hamilton, John L., appointed on Consoli- 
dation Commission, 187 

Hancock, Theodore E., Attorney-General, 
State of New York, and member Consoli- 
dation Charter Conmiission, 194 

Havemeyer, William F., with Samuel J. 
Tilden, induces Comptroller Connolly to 
appoint Andrew H. Green deputy- 
comptroller, 97; receives resignation of 
Comptroller Connolly, 114; reform 
candidate for mayor, 131; elected by 
majority of 8,000, 131; excerpt from 
first annual message, 132; transmits to 
Legislature his reply to charges against 
comptroller by bogus Reform Associa- 
tion, 149; his administration not a strong 
one, 150 



Hawkins, Dexter A., appointed by Comp- 
troller Green to act as counsel before the 
Legislature, 167; causes defeat of bill 
for delay in Riverside Park assessments, 
156; also wooden pavement bill, 169; 
and an amendment to deficiency bill, 
170 

Henry, John M., member of Citizens' 
Association but installed in office vmder 
Tweed regime, 87 

Henschel, Albert E., elected secretary 
Consolidation Commission on decease of 
William P. Rodgers. 187 

Herald, New York, commendatory preface 
to report of Treasurer of Park Commis- 
sion, 72; pre-election criticism of Tweed 
Ring methods in nominating John T. 
Hoffman for Mayor, 83; excerpt from 
editorial attacking Comptroller Green, 
135; notwithstanding previous antag- 
onism admits his stopping thievery 
and saving thousands of dollars to the 
city, 159; nominates him for mayor, 

159 

Hewitt, AbramS., strong tribute to Andrew 
H. Green, 242 

Hill, Gov. David B., signs act to create 
commission to consider consolidation 
into Greater New York, 186 

Hilton, Henry, appointed on Park Com- 
mission, 88; appointment helps Tweed 
Ring influence, 115; retires from Com- 
mission, 174 -^^ 

Hoffman, John T., nominated for mayor 
by Tweed Ring, 83; nominated governor 
and elected, 84; as governor under who 
Tammany, Tweed Ring, and Fisk and 
Gould flourished, 86 

Hogg, James, member first Board of 
Commissioners of Central Park, 50 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, signs memorial 
in plea for Niagara Reservation, 220 

Hone, Philip, on the Whig victory of 1837, 
14; on conflagration of 1835, 15; com- 
ment on Fernando Wood, 47 

Ho wells, W. D., signs memorial in plea 
for Niagara Reservation, 220 

Howland, Henry E., one of the pallbearers 
at funeral of Andrew H. Green, 263 

Hunt, Wilson G., heads respectable element 
in split of party, but counted out in 
election, 47; charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Hutchins, Waldo, member first Board of 
Commissioners of Central Park, 49; ap- 
pointed on special committee, 51; re- 
tires from Park Commission, 89 



317 



INDEX 



Independent Democrats, party formed, 
151; nominate Oswald Ottendorfer for 
mayor, 152 

IngersoU, James H., implicated in frauds 
of 187, 92 

Ingraham, Judge, appoints second com- 
mission to appraise property for pro- 
posed addition to Central Park, 58 

Iselin, Adrian, with others, urges estab- 
lishment of a museum of natural history 
in Central Park, 205 

Jay, John, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Jerome,William Travers, District-Attorney, 
in New York World, on murder of An- 
drew H. Green, 262 

Jesup, Morris K., with others, urges estab- 
lishment of a museum of natural history 
in Central Park, 205 

Joint Investigating Committee report gives 
impression of City finances, 140 

Journal of Commerce on character of 
Andrew H. Green, 239 

Kelly, John, "Boss" of Tammany Hall, 
profuse in forcing noxious bills through 
Assembly, 158 

Kelly, Richard, appointed on commission 
of estimate and assessment for appraising 
proposed addition to Central Park, 58 

Kent, Chancellor, on local government, 48 

King, Charles, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

King, David J., on commission for building 
i8ist Street bridge, 255 

Kingsland, Ambrose C, defeats Fernando 
Wood for mayor, 1850, 47 

Knapp, Shepherd, charter member Amer- 
ican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Lawrence, Abraham R., candidate for 
mayor, 131 

Lee, William P., charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Lexow, Senator Clarence, introduces reso- 
lution providing for joint committee 
to investigate consohdation, 193 

Linton, Edward F., appointed on Consoli- 
dation Commission, 187 

Low, Seth, member of Consolidation Char- 
ter Commission, 194; as mayor of New 
York proposes civic funeral for Andrew 
H. Green, 262; one of the pallbearers, 263 

Longfellow, Henry W., signs memorial in 
plea for Niagara Reservation, 220 



Lorillard, Jacob, on commission for build- 
ing i8ist Street bridge, 255 

Lowell, James Russell, signs memorial in 
plea for Niagara Reservation, 220 

Lubbock, Sir John, signs memorial in plea 
for Niagara Reservation, 220 

McClelland, Charles P., appointed on 
Consolidation Commission, but did not 
act, 187 

MacCracken, Rev. Dr., one of the pall- 
bearers at funeral of Andrew H. Green, 
263 

McMaster, James A., editor Freeman's 
Journal and Catholic Register, tribute to 
Andrew H. Green, 240 

Maine, destruction of and declaration of 
war with Spain causes abandonment of 
proposed celebration of amalgamation 
of Greater New York, 198 

Manhattan Gas Company sues City for 
amount, held extortionate by Comptrol- 
ler, 166 

Marsh, Luther G., charter member Am- 
erican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Mayo, William S., charter member Am- 
erican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, site desig- 
nated in Central Park, 205 

Montgomerie Charter, rights granted under, 
78; reserving to the governor power 
of appointing mayor, sheriff, and coroner 
of New York City, 78 

Moore, Frank, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Moore, George H., charter member Am- 
erican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Morgan, J. P., with others, urges establish- 
ment of a museum of natural history in 
Central Park, 205 

Morgan, Matthew, charter member Am- 
erican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Morris, Gouvemeur, on commission ap- 
pointed to lay out streets of city, 43, 244 

Morton, Gov. Levi P., appoints members 
of Charter Commission on Consolida- 
tion of Greater New York, 194; with 
others urges establishment of a museum 
of natural history in Central Park , 205 

Mosler, Henry, painter of portrait of 
Andrew H. Green for the City Hall, 202 

Mould, Jacob Wray, designer of carvings 
and decorations for Central Park, 54 



318 



INDEX 



Neilson, William H., candidate for 
President Board of Education, 1856, 35 

New York Central Railroad depression of 
tracks add to city tax assessments, 145 

New York City Charter Act passed by 
Legislature, 88 

New York University, removes to Uni- 
versity Heights, 255 

New York Zoological Society incorporated, 
204; applies for allotment of land in 
Bronx Park, 205; reasons for selecting 
this loca'ity, 207 

Newspaper Claims Bill vetoed by Governor 
Dix, 134; city saves $1,500,000 by its 
defeat, 169 

Newspapers, hostile to Comptroller Green 
owing to his refusal to pay questionable 
claims, 126, 128, 132, 133, 134, 135, 139; 
receive $1,000,000 annually in corpora- 
tion advertising at hands of Mayor Hall, 
126; twenty-seven publications suspend 
when plunder is stopped, 127; the Trans- 
cript with its associated printing and 
stationery companies, owned by Tweed 
Ring, receive $3,500,000 in less than 
three years, 127; maintain lobby at 
Albany to obtain legislation to prevent 
auditing of claims against the city, 

134 

Niagara Falls, early history, 216; Andrew 
H. Green draws public attention to neces- 
sity of taking steps to preserve its natural 
beauty, 217; Lord Dufferin suggests that 
governments of Ontario and New York 
acquire rights and form international 
park, 218; Governor Robinson in message 
to Legislature, recommends that com- 
missions be appointed by both govern- 
ments to confer with regard to plan, 218; 
report of Conunissioners of State Survey, 
219; public memorial addressed Governor- 
General Dufferin and Governor Cornell, 
220; Governor Cornell not in favor of 
project, 221; Bill to acknowledge selec- 
tion and location for State reservation 
passed by Legislature and signed by 
Gov. Grover Cleveland, 221; Gov- 
ernor appoints commissioners, 221; 
commissioners request Legislature to 
appropriate $1,433,429.50 as award by 
Appraisement Committee, 221; Bill is 
passed by Legislature and signed by 
Governor Hill, 222; power companies 
encroach on the Falls, 224; American 
Scenic and Historic Preservation Society 
founded, 225 

Niagara Falls Association formed, 221 



O'CoNOR, Charles, quotation from, 77; 
censuring Board of Supervisors, 82; 
statement of conspiracy of Watson, 
Garvey, Ingersoll, Woodward, and Tweed 
93; his legal opinion as to vaUdity of 
Andrew H. Green's position as Deputy- 
Comptroller, lOI 
Olmsted, Frederick Law, appointed super- 
intendent Central Park, 53; awarded 
with Calvert Vaux, first prize for plans 
for laying out park, 54; became architect 
in chief of Central Park, 54; Charter 
member American Zoological and Botan- 
ical Society, 204; interested in preserving 
natural beauty of Niagara Falls, 217; 
sent abroad by Park Board to study 
pubUc grounds, 218 
Opdyke, George, charter member American 

Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 
O'Sullivan, John L., associated with Samuel 
J. Tilden on the Morning News, 31 
Ottendorfer, Oswald, editor of Staats- 
Zeitung head of delegation of prominent 
Germans present memorial to Comp- 
troller Green, 129; nominated for mayor 
by Independent Democrats, 152 

Paine, John, charter member American 
2k)6logical and Botanical Society, 204 

Panic year of 1873, adds to difficulties of 
Comptroller Green, 139 

Park System, The, first city park estab- 
Hshed, 1873, 43; history of other parks, 
43, 44; Central Park established, 45 

Parsons, Samuel, Jr., one of the pallbearers 
at funeral of Andrew H. Green, 263 

Parsons & Co., conservatory at Central 
Park, 63 

Phelps Dodge, A. G., with others, urges 
establishment of a museum of natural 
history in Central Park, 205 

Phelps, J. N., with others, urges establish- 
ment of a museum of natural history in 
Central Park, 205 

Pinney, George M., Jr., member of consoh- 
dation charter Commission, 194 

Piatt, J. R., for whom Andrew H. Green 
was mistaken when assassinated, 262 

Potter, Howard, with others, urges estab- 
lishment of a museum of natural history 
in Central Park, 205 

Prime, Frederick, charter member Am- 
erican 2^ological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Reform Association, so called, send 
bogus petition to Legislature, 149 



319 



INDEX 



"Reform" Legislature, slow in attempting 
relief, ii8; accomplish nothing, 122 

Reform Movement, lacking in results, 150 

Richards, Doctor, with Rev. Leighton 
Williams, conducts funeral services of 
Andrew H. Green, 263 

Richardson, H. H., interested in preserving 
natural beauty of Niagara Falls, 217 

Riverside Park, amount paid for land, 109; 
property owners ask Legislature for 
delay in collection of assessments, 168 

Robb, J . Hampden, member of commission 
on Niagara Reservation, 221 

Roberts, Marshall O., one of committee of 
leading business men misled into signing 
certificate of correctness of Tweed Ring 
books, 165; with others, urges establisn- 
ment of a museum of natural history in 
Central Park, 205 

Robinson, Governor Lucius, recommends 
in message to Legislature that commis- 
sion be appointed by New York and 
Ontario to confer regarding international 
park at Niagara, 218 

Rodgers, William P., elected secretary of 
Consolidation Commission, 187 

Rogers, Sherman S., member of commission 
on Niagara Reservation, 221 

Roosevelt, Theodore, with others, urges 
estabUshment of a museum of natural 
history in Central Park, 205 

Ruggles, Mary, grandmother of Andrew 
H. Green, 4 

Ruggles, Samuel B., on second commission 
for appraisal of proposed Central Park 
addition, 58 

Ruggles, Gen. Timothy, great-grandfather 
of Andrew H. Green, 4 

Ruskin, John, signs memorial in plea for 
Niagara Reservation, 220 

Russell, Archibald, charter member Amer- 
ican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

RusseU, Charles H., member first Board of 
Commissioners of Central Park, 49; 
appointed on special committee, 51; 
retires from Commission, 89 

Rutherford, John,on commission appointed 
to lay out streets of City, 43, 244 

Sands, Nathaniel, associated with Peter 
Cooper in Citizens' Association 86; 
beguiled by Tweed Ring, 87 

Sawyer, Dr. RoUin A., on the bridges across 
the Harlem, 255 

School Tax, equalization controversy, 38 

Schools, Free, established in New York, 38 



Schell, Augustus, charter member Am- 
erican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Schell, Edward, one of committee of lead- 
ing business men misled into signing 
certificate of correctness of Tweed Ring 
books, 165 

Scrub women claims for services not ren- 
dered, 135, 136, 148 

Seymour, Horatio, nominated by Tweed 
Ring for President to get him out of 
State political field, 84 

Sherman, Watts, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Sistare, George K., one of committee of 
leading business men misled into signing 
certificate of correctness of Tweed Ring 
books, 165 

Smidt, John C. T., charter member Am- 
erican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204 

Smith, George W., one of the executors of 
estate of Samuel J. Tilden, 209 

Stebbins, Henry G., retires from Park 
Commission, 89; member new Park 
Commission after downfall of Tweed 
Ring, 107, i74_ 

Stewart, A. T., with others, urges establish- 
ment of a museum of natural history in 
Central Park, 205 

Stewart, D. J., with others, lurges estab- 
lishment of a museum of natural history 
in Central Park, 205 

Stranahan, J. S. T., appointed on Consoli- 
dation Commission, and elected vice- 
president 187 

Strong, William K., member first Board 
of Commissioners of Central Park, 50; 
Mayor of New York and member of 
Consolidation Charter Commission, 194 

Stuart, Robert L., charter member Am- 
erican Zoological and Botanical Society, 
204; with others, urges establishment of 
a museum of natiural history in Central 
Park, 205 

Smt, New York, against Costigan Bill, 154; 
editorial in reference to Andrew H. 
Green as first mayor of Greater New 
York, 258; on the character of Mr. 
Green, 239 

Supervisors Board of, provided for in Act 
of 1857, 80; obtain act to take over work 
of Court-house Commission, 82; powers 
further augmented, 82 

Sweeney, Peter B., County Chamberlain, 
member of Tweed Ring, 84; appointed 
on new Park Commission by Mayor 



320 



INDEX 



Hall, 88; President of Department of 
Parks, 91; retires from Park Commission, 
174 

Tammany Hall, attempt to strike name of 
Samuel J. Tilden from Assembly ticket, 
32; restored to power in election of 1874, 
153; tries to force Costigan Bill through 
Legislature, 154; defeated in election of 
187s, 158 

Taylor, Moses, one of committee of 
business men misled into signing certif- 
icate of correctness of Tweed Ring books, 

165 

Tiemann, Mayor, vetoes resolutions of 
Common Counsel approving legislation 
for enlarging Central Park, 57 

Tilden, Samuel J., associated with Andrew 
H. Green, 28, 29; starts Morning News, 
31; opposed by Tammany Hall, 31; as 
Governor in first annual message cites 
improved political conditions, 79; de- 
scribes his position toward Tweed Ring, 
84; not deceived by shams of the Ring, 
87; argument against city charter, 87; 
his statement as to amount of plunder 
shared by members of Tweed Ring, 92; 
approached by Comptroller Connolly, 
advises turning his office over to Andrew 
H. Green, 97; his letter some years later 
stating the case, 99; candidate for gov- 
ernor, 152; excerpt from nomination 
speech assailing high tariff, special 
privileges, and monopolies, 152; against 
President Grant's third term ambition, 
152; successful attack on powerful Canal 
Ring, 163; candidate for Presidency, 170; 
his death, 208; his bequests and provision 
for the Tilden Trust, 209; his will con- 
tested by relatives, 211; supreme Court 
decides for plaintiff, 212; had induced 
Governor HUl to sign Niagara Reserva- 
tion Bill, 222 

Times, New York, reference to attempt of 
politicians to control patronage of 
Central Park, 68; publishes excerpts from 
records of Department of Finance, 93; 
on appointment of Andrew H. Green as 
Comptroller, 114; exposes fraudsof Tweed 
Ring, 115; its business suffers in con- 
sequence, 115; on results accomplished 
by "Reform" Legislature, 123; comment 
on return of Tammany to political power, 
153; against Costigan Bill, 154; on the 
character of Andrew H. Green, 239 

Tracey, Charles, charter member American 
Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 



Tracy, Benjamin F., member of Consoli- 
dation Charter Commission, 194 

Transcript, the, designated the "official 
journal, " with its associated printing and 
stationery concerns, owned by members 
of Tweed Ring, paid $3,400,000 in less 
than three years, 127, 129 

Tribune, New York, on address of President 
Green to the Board of Education, 40; 
on appointment of Andrew H. Green as 
Deputy-Comptroller, 100; on means 
taken by Acting-Comptroller Green to 
meet financial crisis, 103; on thecharacter 
of Andrew H. Green, 239; on consohda- 
tion of Greater New York, 259 

Tweed, William M., at head of first Board 
of Supervisors, 81; as Deputy-Street 
Commissioner, 84; reelected to State 
Senate after exposure, 90, in; his share 
in the plunder, 92; his portrait in fire- 
works at Fourth of July celebration, 
164 

Tweed Ring, erroneously credited with 
developing boulevard system and other 
improvements, 72; nominate John T. 
Hoffman for mayor, 83; and for gover- 
nor, 84; nominate Horatio Se>Tnour for 
President, 84; reaches height of power 
under Governor Hoffman, 86; assists 
Fisk and Gould to control Erie, 86; de- 
nounced by John Bigelow, 88; its Era 
of Plunder, 90: frauds of 187 1 exposed, 
92; plans to make Connolly the scape- 
goat, 96; hold on in spite of exposure, no; 
controls the courts, 115; exposure of 
frauds lacking in enduring vitality, 122, 
150, 152, 162; the Ring a natural result 
of evolution of political methods, 163; 
hoodwink leading business men into 
signing certificate of good character, 165; 
misrule leaves deficit of $6,600,000 in 
State Treasury, 168 

Uhl, Edward, one of the pallbearers at 
funeral of Andrew H. Green. 263 

Ulshoeffer, Michael, on second commission 
for appraisal of proposed Central Park 
addition, 58 

Vaux Calvert, awarded, with Frederick 
Law Olmsted, first prize for plans for 
laying out Central Park, 54; collaborates 
with Olmsted when latter is appointed 
architect-in-chief, 54; appointed on Con- 
solidated Commission, 187 

Veeder, William D., appointed on Con- 
solidation Commission, 187 



321 



INDEX 



Viel6, Egbert L., engineer-in-chief, Cen- 
tral Park Board, retires, 54; comment of 
Evening Post on, 55 

Wales, Samuel H., Republican candidate 

for mayor, 153 
Wall Street takes up issue of city bonds 

at solicitation of Comptroller Green, 

142 
Walworth, Chancellor, in social life, 30; 
War, influence of, on growth of cities, 66 
War with Spain causes abandonment of 

project to celebrate amalgamation of 

Greater New York, ig8 
Washington, John A., at Mt. Vernon, 233 
Waterbury, Nelson J., candidate President 

Board of Education, 1856, 35 
Watson, James, County Auditor, impli- 
cated in Tweed frauds of 187 1, Q2; his 

death hastens exposure of conspirators, 

92 
Webb, David, candidate for President 

Board of Election, 1856, 35 
Welch, Hon. Thomas V., acting in cause 

of Niagara Reservation and afterward 

Superintendent of the Reservation, 221 
Whittier, John G., signs memorial in plea 

for Niagara Reservation, 220 
Wickham, William H., Tammany candi- 
date for mayor elected, 153; assails 

Comptroller Green, 153 
Williams, Cornelius M., negro assassin of 

Andrew G. Green, 261 
Williams, Rev. Leighton, with Doctor 

Richards conducts funeral services of 

Andrew H. Green, 263 
Williams, Mornay, one of the pallbearers 

at funeral of Andrew H. Green, 263 i 



Wilson, General James Grant, chairman of 
committee on presentation of memorial 
medal to Andrew H. Green, 199; makes 
presentation address, 200 

Winthrop, B. K., charter member Ameri- 
can Zoological and Botanical Society, 204 

Wolfe, John David, with others, urges 
establishment of a museum of natural 
history in Central Park, 205 

Wood, Fernando, his origin, 46; defeated 
in first candidacy for mayor by Ambrose 
C. Kingsland, 1850, 47; nominated in 
1854, party splits and nominates Wilson 
G. Hunt, but Wood declared elected, 47; 
his unscrupulous despotism, 48 

Wooden pavement bill rushed through 
Assembly, recalled by the speaker, again 
passes Assembly and killed in Senate by 
only one vote, 169 

Woodford, General Stewart L., member of 
Consolidation Charter Commission, 194; 
delivers address on occasion of presenta- 
tion of memorial medal to Andrew H. 
Green, igg; testimony to character and 
public services of Mr. Green, 242. 243 

Woodward, Elbert A., implicated in frauds 
of 1871, 92 

World, New York, advocates candidacy of 
Andrew H. Green as Mayor, comments 
on his management of Central Park, 86 

Wurster, Frederick W., Mayor of Brooklyn 
and member of Consolidation Charter 
Commission, 194 

Yellowstone Park established by Act of 

Congress, 220 
Young, Joseph B., President and Secretary 

of Board of Supervisors, 92 



322 




THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 



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